


Palimpsest

by sburbanite



Series: Divine Comedy, Hellish Angst [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brief suicidal thoughts, Canon typical archangels being bastards, Dark Comedy, M/M, Memory Alteration, Stabbing, Temporary Amnesia, Temporary Character Death, Very dirty fistfighting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-09-09
Packaged: 2020-06-24 23:31:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 46,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19733893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sburbanite/pseuds/sburbanite
Summary: Hastur wants revenge, Gabriel doesn't want to waste a perfectly good angel. It's a deal made in Hell.Crowley will do anything it takes to get his angel back, but will Aziraphale even remember who he is?





	1. Chapter 1

The flat was quiet when Crowley walked in, popping by to grab some bits and pieces and remind his plants who was boss. He wasn't paying attention to the little signs, the things that would have let him know it wasn't the quiet of empty rooms, of dust settling in the corners and plant life photosynthesizing peacefully. This was the silence of someone waiting in the dark with a weapon at the ready. Crowley sensed it, too late to do anything except stare mutely up into Hastur's grinning face as he brought the poker down onto the back of Crowley's head. The last time this had happened, Hastur had been laughing. This time, the demon stared stony-faced into Crowley's eyes as his vision faded

"Gotcha, you bastard." Hastur murmured. It was the last thing Crowley heard before everything went dark and silent and cold.

There was a dream, Crowley thought, something about an angel and an aardvark dancing a gavotte. It was ridiculous, but the smile on Aziraphale's face had been rapturous. He was warmth and light, soft feathers flying as his calves rose and fell. The past month had been filled with those smiles, with softness and aching, bone-deep contentment. The dream was like that too, until it wasn't. The music began to skip, the needle skittering across the record with an ugly scratching sound. Aziraphale tripped, falling ungracefully in a heap of tartan and ruffled plumage. Pain bloomed around the edges of Crowley's consciousness as the dream dissolved, leaving him with the impression of sad, sky-blue eyes. His head hurt. Crowley blinked as bright light forced itself on him. Actually, that was one hell of an understatement; his head throbbed with a pulsating agony started at the back of his head and clawed its way to the front. 

"Ngh." Crowley groaned. There wasn't much point in trying to be cool when you woke up with a splitting head, tied to your own throne.

"Awake, are we?" Hastur said, and slapped Crowley hard across the face.

"Fuck, Hastur! I'm bloody awake _now_. What the Heaven d'you want?"

"You should know that, Crawly, I would have thought it'd be obvious."

Crowley swallowed, tasting blood. His stupid sharp snake teeth had done a number on his mouth. Unable to help himself, Crowley's eyes darted to the place where Ligur's remains had been; a sad little stain of demonic sludge that Adam had thoughtfully removed when the world had been reset. 

"Let me guess. You want revenge or something, right? For, er."

"Ligur. Yeah."

Hastur's jaw was clenched painfully tight, his black eyes narrowed in a way that was probably supposed to be menacing but actually made him look slightly constipated.

"Ah. Well, the thing is, I kinda had to save the world, yeah? So I sort of had to do whatever it took. Sorry. About that."

"Do I look like I give two shits about a load of stupid humans? You _murdered_ him. _Permanently._ "

Truthfully, Crowley did feel a little guilty about that. He generally avoided killing things that could think and feel pain, and Ligur had probably just about qualified as sentient. Everything else seemed to have been fixed when the apocalypse hadn't happened, but Ligur was still gone. It was, in a lot of ways, the only real consequence of the whole disastrous affair. On the other hand, Crowley was acutely aware of what Beelzebub would have done had he been taken in when Hastur and Ligur tried to capture him. It wouldn't have been pretty. He'd have probably ended up on the front line of the war against the angels with two broken arms tied behind his back and a sword made out of tinfoil, the first to fall under an angelic blade that would have erased him from existence just as completely as Ligur had been. Heaven might even have made sure Aziraphale was the one to do it.

"Look, Hastur--" Crowley said. Hastur hit him again, a vicious slap on his right cheek.

"Don't try to weasel your way out of it, you bloody snake. I'm not stupid, much as you might think I am. You're going to suffer the consequences of what you've done, even if Down There says we have to leave you alone."

Crowley tried to send the pain in his head somewhere else, somewhere he wouldn't have to think about it. At least, he thought, it was a distraction from the feeling of his arms being pulled taut around the back of the throne, tied with something that was cutting off his circulation completely. You could always count on head injuries to take center stage in the theater of pain. They were reliable like that.

Weakly, Crowley tried to miracle the bonds around his wrists away. Instead of disappearing, they tightened. Whatever they were made of, it was beginning to burn his skin.

"Listen, I get it, I do." Crowley tried again, hoping Hastur would keep his hands to himself long enough that he could get a coherent sentence together. "I probably deserve it a little bit, even. But what exactly is the plan here? You wanna beat me up some more, is that it? Get your kicks from a little physical violence? Downstairs already tried holy water, remember, and it didn't really take."

Aziraphale had told him Hastur had been at Crowley's trial, had even murdered a lesser demon to test if the water was genuinely holy. Crowley hoped with every fiber of his being that he'd been convinced by the angel's acting. 

"Oh, no, Crawly. I'm not going to hurt you. Not much, anyway." Hastur was smiling, an evil grin that didn't touch his eyes. "I'm going to gut your stupid little angel instead."

Hastur produced a kitchen knife from his coat and grinned. Crowley felt the bottom drop out of his world, along with his stomach and what remained of his cool. 

"No, no, no. Hastur, c'mon, you're angry at me, not him. Makes more sense to kill me instead, yeah?"

"I don't think so. I think I'd like to watch you watching _him_ die, the way you made me watch Ligur die. And then I think I'd like for you to see how it feels when he's gone."

In a dark part of his mind, Crowley began to scream. It was a long, high, desperate siren-wail of pain, blocking out all thoughts except for _No, no, no, anything but that_. 

Hastur made a disgusted face. Obviously, Crowley's composure was slipping. Unusually for Crowley, he didn't care at all.

"Oh, relax, Crawly." Hastur snarled, "It's just a regular knife. No hellfire or curses or demonic runes. I'm not a _monster._ "

"Hastur." Crowley hissed, forcing himself to do the unthinkable; begging for mercy in Hell was basically suicide. "Please don't. I'll do anything."

Hastur laughed, a throaty sound that began low and ended in high-pitched tittering. 

"Of course you will," he said happily, patting the red mark his slap had left on Crowley's cheek. "But it doesn't matter. The only thing I want you to do is watch."

Hastur grinned. Crowley wondered if it was possible for him to throw up, since he hadn't eaten anything for four days and tended to switch off the whole business with the stomach acid when he wasn't using it. He felt like he might find out soon. The self-satisfied look on Hastur's face filled him with nausea and, suddenly, with a hot, white, sickening rage.

"Why!?" He snarled, tugging violently at his bonds in a vain attempt to smash the throne to bits. "Why do you even care, you fucking lunatic? Demons don't care about who gets murdered! I've been to Hell, it's wall-to-wall murder all the blessed time! You _can't move_ for corpses the day after yearly appraisals!"

Even as distracted as he was, Crowley could tell he'd hit a nerve. A dark expression flitted shadow-like across Hastur's face, before settling into a more neutral "sucking on a rotten lemon" look of displeasure. 

"I don't _care_ , obviously. It's the principle of the thing. Ligur was a Duke of Hell. Have some respect, serpent."

"You don't give a shit about that, I don't give a shit about that! Nobody cares! You're only a Duke of Hell until someone decides it's time for you to give up the title along with your breathing privileges! You've talked about wanting to murder Dagon _to my face_ before! If Ligur had gotten in your way you would've kill--"

Crowley stopped talking very quickly because a sharp knife was suddenly pressing into his windpipe. 

"Don't even _think_ about finishing that sentence. Crawly," Hastur's voice was a rasping whisper of deep, primal fury, "Or I'll show you how much pain a demon can withstand without dying. Trust me, I've done lots of experiments."

The knife stayed at his throat for emphasis. Crowley could feel it pressing against his jugular, a few millimetres away from sending him back down to Hell. He wondered if he pushed against it, quick enough that Hastur couldn't pull away, would Aziraphale be safe? Somehow he doubted Hastur would bother killing Aziraphale if Crowley wasn't there to watch. Just a little thrust of his neck and he could keep it all from happening...but Crowley knew he wouldn't be able to do it. As much as he loved Aziraphale with all of his heart and tarnished soul, he'd never been able to stomach the idea of suicide. Six thousand years of living to spite the deity who had cast him out had kindled a survival instinct that couldn't be extinguished that easily. And then Hastur slid the knife away and his chance was over. 

Crowley swallowed. 

"So what," he asked, "are we just waiting for Aziraphale to turn up then? Could be weeks before he bothers to pop round. And what makes you think you'll be able to kill him if he does show up?"

"Well, I know for a fact he's on his way. He left a little message on your...thingy," Hastur gestured disdainfully toward the ansaphone, "while you were having a little nap. Sounded worried about you." 

"And," he continued, "I probably couldn't kill him in a fair fight, big holy bastard of a Principality that he is, but what sort of demon fights _fair_?"

There was a circle drawn on the floor, Crowley realized, just inside the doorway. It was drawn in pale grey chalk, almost invisible against the polished concrete if you didn't know it was there. The wards were hard to make out, but Crowley didn't need to read them to know they were for binding power, for severing an angel's connection to its heavenly source of power. Where in the _hell_ , he thought, had Hastur learned that? The Hastur he knew had barely been able to read the misspelled comic sans reports of Hell, let alone understand complex Aramaic script. 

"Shit." Crowley said, quietly.

Hastur grinned at him again, nastily.

There had to be something Crowley could do, he thought desperately, some way out of this that could make it all okay. He'd managed to avert an Apocalypse, for someone's sake, surely one measly vengeful demon was easy by comparison? Child's play for Anthony J. Crowley, who'd managed to combine the bringing down of a Nazi spy network and a completely suave and subtle declaration of affection into one cool, amazingly slick gesture. He just needed to think, just needed to figure out a way to destroy the circle, to distract Hastur long enough that he could get himself free, he just needed to--

And then there wasn't any time left to think of something, because an angel was knocking on his front door.

"Hello, Crowley?" 

Aziraphale's voice sounded distant and apprehensive. Crowley prayed silently that Aziraphale would sense Hastur's presence, that the stench of brimstone in the air would be enough to make the angel think twice about coming inside. 

"Go home, angel!" He shouted, "I'm, er, sick! You don't want to come in here!"

Crowley coughed a few times for effect. Hastur chuckled quietly at him, clearly unconvinced.

"What on Earth are you on about, dear boy? We don't get sick. I don't think we _can_ , in fact. I'm coming in!" 

The locks on the front door turned smoothly as Aziraphale miracled his way into the hallway. Crowley wanted to scream at him, but he knew that would only attract the angel straight to his death. 

"Trust me, Aziraphale, you _really_ don't want to come in here! I've got an old fr--"

Crowley's breath was snatched away as Hastur punched him hard in the stomach. He knew Aziraphale had heard it, the telltale little _oof_ of expelled air came from being winded. Something clattered to the floor out in the hall, and time seemed to slow down even as Aziraphale's footsteps sped up. The sharp click-clack of brogues on concrete filled Crowley's whole universe. 

He tried to say something, he really did. Lungs burned as they struggled to pull in enough air, diaphragm screaming in protest, Crowley managed a choked "Angel! Don't!" before Aziraphale burst into the room holding a white umbrella aloft the way he had once, long, long ago, held a flaming sword. 

It was a scene from no Renaissance painting ever created - a red-faced, out of breath angel with a look of furious confusion on his face as he prepared to swing for the demon lurking just over the threshold - but it etched itself permanently into Crowley's brain. In that second, as he stepped into the circle and the holy fire in his eyes died away, he looked so _human_. So vulnerable and beautiful and brave Crowley thought his heart would break.

Before Aziraphale could do anything beside gasp at the sight of Crowley tied to a chair, beaten and bruised, Hastur stepped forward and slid the blade of the kitchen knife into Aziraphale's chest, up between his ribs and into the quaking human heart at his center. 

The angel opened his mouth to speak, looked at Crowley with watery eyes full of pain and shock, and then keeled over forward onto the floor.

Crowley screamed. It was a long time before he stopped.


	2. Chapter 2

Aziraphale woke surrounded by warmth and light and love, and he had never been more miserable. Before he even opened his eyes he could feel the soft caress of Her grace against his soul. Heaven. It should have felt wonderful. Sadly, Aziraphale realized it hadn't felt wonderful for quite some time. Instead it felt sour and artificial, a fluorescent light doing a poor job of imitating the sun. Being here meant that Aziraphale was in deep trouble.

He opened his eyes, squinting against the glow that suffused the celestial air. It was even worse than he'd feared.

"Aziraphale! So good to have you with us again!"

Gabriel was smiling at him, a poisonous smirk of barely-concealed satisfaction.

"Gabriel. What happened to, and I quote, "Shut your stupid mouth and die already." Aziraphale pursed his lips. "I believe that was where we landed when we last spoke."

His hands were bound to the chair he was sitting in, facing Gabriel's modern glass desk. The archangel was leaning forward in his own seat, fingers steepled. Aziraphale didn't think he'd ever seen him look so pleased with himself, even after the business with delivering the news to that poor human woman. 

"Oh, that's all water under the bridge, don't give it a second thought." Gabriel waved a hand dismissively. "We were far too hasty in deciding to throw you away, Aziraphale. After all, you worked hard for us for six thousand years! Or you worked, at least. We shouldn't let a teensy little wobble at the end there put a black mark on your permanent record, should we?"

"A _teensy little wobble_." Aziraphale said, wrinkling his nose. "We stopped the _Apocalypse_ , Gabriel. And I'll have you know I don't regret it one bit."

Gabriel sighed and stood up, coming around to Aziraphale's side of the desk and leaning against the edge of it in a way he probably thought looked understanding and casual. Aziraphale could see how sharp the polished edge of the desktop was, though, and suppressed a little smile as Gabriel winced.

"See, this is what I'm talking about. You were a pretty decent Angel once, nothing spectacular, but not terrible-"

"Why, thank you. Such _kind_ words."

"-But then you met that demon and he put all this bullshit into your head about there being anything else that matters beside the Great Plan. The war between Heaven and Hell." Gabriel made a fist and shook it enthusiastically. "The Good Fight! We were gonna win, Aziraphale! You know we were! It would've been glorious."

Aziraphale made a disgusted sound. Heaven really were just as bad as Hell, after all. All that mattered to them was winning some pointless war, with the death of everything that truly made life worth living written off as collateral damage.

"So I thought, all we gotta to do is get you back up here permanently and we can do some rehabilitation. A bit of re-education. That's what we're all about after all, right? Forgiveness and all that junk. It's not your fault, after all, you were corrupted. Tempted. Whatever."

The room suddenly felt too hot, too close, even though it was a nearly endless white expanse. Aziraphale swallowed.

"Hang on, did you have something to do with this? With discorporating me?"

"Well, yeah. Had to retrieve you without leaving you a back door, Aziraphale. We don't want a repeat of last time, do we?"

Belatedly, Aziraphale remembered the look in Crowley's eyes when he'd seen...when he'd watched him _die_. Crowley had suffered enough pain for ten thousand lifetimes, and now he would be down there all alone, dealing with Aziraphale's death. _Again_. And Aziraphale had no way of getting back to him without a body. Something told him that filling in all the paperwork correctly wasn't going to cut it this time. Suddenly, he very much wanted to cry. 

"Ahh, I see you've remembered what happened." Gabriel said, soothingly. "Now don't get your feathers ruffled over the whole discorporation incident, I haven't told you the best part yet. After we're finished, you won't remember any of it."

Aziraphale looked up at him, feeling cold horror crawling up his spine.

"What do you mean?" Aziraphale said, his voice dying in his throat.

"Well, the demon Crowley, of course. He's the one that turned you away from us. So, I thought, why not just get rid of him? Erase him. Make it so you don't remember ever meeting him. That'd solve everything. Pretty neat, right?"

If Aziraphale still had a heart, it would have stopped. His mind began to sing with panic, a high-pitched symphony of primal terror. 

"Oh no, no, please! You can't!" Aziraphale tugged frantically at the ropes binding his hands, "It's been _six thousand_ _years_ , he's all I have! You _can't_."

"Oh Aziraphale." Gabriel said, leaning forward and brushing away the tears rolling down the angel's cheek with his thumb. Gently, so gently, he cradled his face. "I absolutely can."

"Please," Aziraphale sobbed, " _I_ _love him_."

"Shhh. I know, and it must be terrible. But don't you worry, we're going to fix all that."

Gabriel placed the palm of his other hand on Aziraphale's forehead and whispered something in Enochean. 

Inside Aziraphale's head, everything went white. The worst part of it was that it didn't hurt at all.

***

Back on Earth, Crowley was sitting numbly on his throne and watching as Aziraphale's corporation disintegrated. To a human, the body would have simply become more and more difficult to remember, sliding off the mind like water off an unspecified waterfowl. To Crowley, who had more occult senses than you could shake a pitchfork at, the body seemed to fuzz and defocus, atoms drifting away and merging with their surroundings. It was standard procedure for discorporated beings. After all, it wouldn't do to let human morticians poke around too much in the sexless, partially-mortal shell of a heavenly or hellish being. Having no genitalia and only the bare necessities of internal machinery tended raise difficult questions for an anatomist.

It was good, in a way, Crowley thought. The body dissolving like that meant Aziraphale was still alive, even if he was trapped in a place Crowley could never reach. This time there would be no miraculous rescue. getting into the Bastille all those years ago had been difficult, but when angels fell from heaven it was very much a one way ticket.

Hastur had released him at some point. Crowley found he didn't really care. He thought, distantly, that he should be angry, should want to rip Hastur limb from limb. He didn't, though. He didn't feel much of anything except a gaping hollowness at the core of his being. It was like moving through a thick, grey fog. Hard to think. Hard to care about anything.

Aziraphale was gone. He was gone and he probably wouldn't be coming back.

Crowley got up, achingly stiff after being trapped in one position, and shuffled across the room. He headed right past Hastur, who was lurking triumphantly by the doorway. He stepped over the thing that had been Aziraphale without looking at it. Out in the hallway the angel had knocked over a potted plant, shedding leaves and pottery shards across the concrete. Crowley stepped over that too, eyes fixed on his destination.

Down behind the black leather couch in the kitchenette was a bottle of whiskey older than the building it was currently sitting in. Crowley had been saving it for something, he couldn't remember what right now, but whatever it was it certainly wouldn't be happening anymore. He flopped down onto the sofa and felt around for it, fingers knocking against a small velvet box as he did so. He pushed it aside, his brain screaming _don't think about it, don't think about it_ , and the bottle was there, nestled in the dark. He grabbed it and wrenched it out into the light.

Crowley lay down, ripped the cork out and took a long, long drink. 

"So that's it then, you're just going to get drunk?"

Hastur had followed him, keeping his distance, most likely worried that Crowley had some more holy water hidden somewhere. If he had, Crowley thought, darkly, Hastur would've been an unpleasant puddle by now. 

"Well? Is that it? Say something!" Hastur hissed.

Crowley flipped him a middle finger and carried on drinking. The alcohol was starting to add a warm tinge to the brain fog, aided by a little demonic miracle. He very desperately needed to be drunk right now. Unfortunately, the alcohol was also rubbing at his emotions until they felt flayed open, like frayed electrical wire. Hopefully, he thought, by the time the tears started Hastur would have gotten bored and literally gone to hell.

"Rrgh!" 

Dispassionately, Crowley watched Hastur tip over a decorative statue in frustration. It wasn't one of the important ones, thankfully. Just a little statue of an owl he'd seen in Florence in 1678 and had kept ever since. A reminder of better times. Now it was shattered into bits, and Crowley couldn't summon the energy to miracle it back together.

"I can't fucking believe you, Crowley!" Hastur snarled, spittle flying as he advanced on Crowley."Why aren't you doing anything!? Why aren't you _angry_!?"

Crowley took a brief break from drinking.

"I _am_ angry, there just isn't any point. Nothing left to lose. Just wanna be numb."

Hastur sat down on the sofa. It was far too close for Crowley's comfort, so he kicked him as hard as he could in a vague section of overcoat. Instead of meeting solid muscle, Crowley's shoe seemed to sink into his side. He gagged a little, choking back the urge to vomit. Whatever the other demon's corporation was, it wasn't even slightly human. Hastur didn't seem to notice.

"Look, I mean it's not like he's _gone_ , gone, right? Not like…not like Ligur is." He said, looking at Crowley with dead, black eyes. There might have been sadness there, if Hastur had been capable of feeling emotions.

Crowley pinched the brow of his nose. He really wasn't drunk enough to deal with this.

"Okay. What? The hell? Why do you _care_?"

"I dunno." Hastur put his hand out for the bottle. Crowley stared at it.

"No! No you absolutely cannot have any, and also get the _fuck_ out of my flat!"

Hastur didn't seem to have heard him. 

"Stuff's just not as fun without him around, y'know? It's like, when I stuck the stupid prissy angel back there it wasn't half as good as if Ligur'd been here."

Crowley put his head in his hands and curled up on his side. 

"Oh my _god_." He said, quietly, face pressed into a cushion that hadn't been there a second ago.

"We would've had a good laugh at his stupid face, maybe kicked you about a bit, and then gone and had a few traffic wardens for dinner." Hastur had a dreamy, far-away look in his eyes. "It would've been perfect." 

Crowley had had enough. He sat up sharply and screamed directly into Hastur's face.

"Can you _please_ , for the love of Sa- _somebody_ , FUCK OFF and have your emotional breakthrough somewhere else! Anywhere else! I hear the Moon is nice this time of year."

That seemed to snap Hastur out of his introspective mood, leaving him looking vaguely embarrassed. Crowley silently thanked whatever deity currently presided over his disaster of a life that he didn't have to hear any more about how murdering people he loved just wasn't as fun solo. 

"Er. Right. I'm going, but only because you're being so bloody boring." Hastur jabbed a filthy finger into Crowley's chest. "But I'll be back once you're sober enough to suffer properly. You can be sure of that."

Hastur vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving behind the scent of brimstone and rotting meat.

Crowley collapsed back onto the sofa and hugged both the cushion and the bottle to his chest. Tears were coming, he could feel them building in his chest, prickling behind his eyes like the first drops of rain over Eden. Aziraphale had sheltered him then, one brilliant white wing offered like a promise. _I will care for you, even when nobody else does_.

There was nobody here to shelter him now.

Crowley breathed out a long, shaking breath and let them fall.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're headed out of the heavy angst zone now...expect lighter, softer angst with showers of silliness.

Eventually, Crowley couldn't cry anymore. His body was done with it. He supposed he could've forced it to continue, could have dragged out his period of drunken mourning indefinitely, but there didn't seem much point in it. He would have to stop some time. The alcohol refilled the bottle as Crowley willed it away, leaving him shaken and hollow and raw.

The flat was quiet; the only sounds the distant swish of Mayfair traffic and the silent terror of Crowley's plants. It felt incredibly empty. Outside the world continued on, as if Crowley's own world wasn't over. He forced himself to sit up. Couldn't lie down forever. Had to do _something_. He just wished he knew what. Absently, Crowley rubbed at his wrists, wincing as he realized there were raw, red welts where the bindings had been. They hurt, but the pain was somewhere distant, somewhere beyond the vast horizon of Aziraphale's absence. 

He channeled a little demonic energy to heal the wounds, but they didn't change. That...was odd. Although Crowley was a demon, he had all the same healing abilities as an Angel. After all, just as much harm could be done in saving the wrong life as in taking the right one. He should have been able to heal anything he saw fit. The only injuries a demon couldn't heal were…

Crowley realized his hands were shaking. The only wounds impervious to demonic healing were _holy_ wounds. 

Just to check that his powers weren't on the fritz, Crowley healed the gash on the back of his head, feeling the flesh knit together and bone repair itself. Trying his wrists again did nothing. Well, he thought, that settled it. Someone was playing silly buggers, and Crowley had a sneaking suspicion that they weren't playing fair.

He wondered if Hastur would have been stupid enough to leave the bindings behind, and then he chided himself for questioning it. Of course Hastur was that stupid. Crowley stalked to his office, repairing the owl statue and the plant as he went, and carefully avoided looking at the place where Aziraphale had been. He was gone, of course. By now his component atoms were mingling with the stuff of Crowley's flat, in the air and the dust and the soil of his plants. It was almost a comfort. Down behind the throne, a pair of manacles were lying on the polished concrete. 

They were covered in Crowley's dried blood, but he thought he could make out the shape of lettering beneath the grime. He reached for them and then stopped himself. Picking up potentially holy ordinance with his bare hands was a very bad idea. He turned to go and fetch his heavy duty marigolds, before spotting Aziraphale's fallen umbrella. It was still spotlessly white, lying against the wall where the angel had dropped it. The bamboo handle of it would do nicely to hook the manacles and keep them at arms length. Crowley bent down to pick it up and noticed something gold lying next to the handle. Aziraphale's ring, the one he never went without. 

He sat down heavily. That ring, or one like it, had been on the angel's finger for six thousand years. Crowley thought this particular one, shaped like a pair of wings with a crest at the centre, was about two hundred years old. Aziraphale had gotten it around the time he'd opened his bookshop, spotting it in a shop window as they strolled through Soho. Secretly, Crowley thought it was the loveliest one since the very first. 

He picked it up and slipped it into the inside pocket of his blazer, right over his heart. 

Focus, Crowley told himself. One step at a time. Check the bindings, find out what Heavenly machinations are behind all of this, and then find a way to end the self-righteous bastards. Hastur had done the killing, sure, but he was a blunt instrument. Not smart enough to come up with this on his own, not subtle enough to think of going after Crowley via Aziraphale. No, someone much smarter had levelled him at the angel, had wound him up and set him on the Warpath like heaving a bowling ball at an elaborate five-tier wedding cake. When Crowley found out who, that person was going to _pay_.

Gingerly, he hooked the manacles with the end of the umbrella and carried them at arms-length to the kitchenette. Rinsing them in a high pressure stream of cold water got most of the blood off, revealing the lettering underneath. Crowley couldn't read it. He couldn't even really look at it. The engraved words swam and shifted under his gaze, running together and separating like mercury. He swore and kicked the kitchen cabinet in frustration.

Heavenly script. Fallen angel. Of course he couldn't read it. The ability to read Enochean had been taken from him along with Her love. Crowley couldn't say he missed all that (not since he had realized he had the love of one particular angel, at any rate), but the ability to read the signature curling and twisting at the edge of the bands would have been really, really useful. A dead end, then.

Crowley collapsed onto the sofa and stretched out his long, aching limbs. His angel was gone, his wrists hurt, and everything for the conceivable future was awful. Unless Aziraphale could find some way to get home, either by pleading with a higher authority or outright theft of heavenly goods, Crowley was going to be spending the rest of his eternal future alone. A month, they'd had. A month of good food and better alcohol and the final, joyous release of overflowing affection after six thousand years of mutual pining. Just a month to show Aziraphale how much he loved him. It was so incredibly unfair. Crowley wondered what humans did when they couldn't physically cry anymore. Probably drink some more water until they could, he assumed.

He probably would have done likewise, had his phone not begun to ring. Naturally, the ringtone was the most annoying one he could find, some god-awful song that had been a YouTube viral sensation long enough ago to be hopelessly out of date, but not old enough to be nostalgic. Every time it rang in public he could feel the irritation level of every human in a fifty foot radius hit the metaphorical roof. Right now it was mainly annoying him, though. The number wasn't one he recognised, so he rejected the call. Bloody telemarketers could just leave a goddamn message. Just as he'd flung the phone casually across the leathery expanse of the sofa, as far away from him as possible, it began to ring again. This time, when he looked at the screen, the only options were "Answer" or "Accept". That was certainly weird enough to get Crowley's attention.

"Hello?" He said, holding the phone away from his head as if it might explode, "Anthony J. Crowley's phone?"

"Oh brilliant! I was right!" came an enthusiastic voice from the other end "Wensley, I told you I could guess it if I wanted to!"

"Actually, the odds of that are just ridiculous. You must've cheated somehow." A smaller voice said, somewhat grumpily.

"Yeah," a girl's voice said, "you can't go around guessing people's phone numbers, Adam, otherwise you could just ring up anyone. You could ring up the Queen and ask her if you could come round for tea."

"I'd be up for that," a fourth voice said, "I bet the Queen does wicked sandwiches."

"Hey, you lot!" Crowley said, attempting to get a word in edgeways, "Am I on speakerphone? What the heck are you calling me for?"

"Oh, right," Adam said, seemingly remembering Crowley was there, "We want to go paintballing but Wensley's Mum said we can't go unless an a "responsible adult" comes with us, which is stupid cos' it's not going to be a fair fight against an adult, is it? They'd be a huge target compared to us." 

"Specially if they're bein' responsible," said the voice Crowley assumed belonged to the grubby kid who'd stuck Pollution with a flaming sword, "Then they'd have to shout out where they were. It's not responsible to sneak up on people."

"Anyway," Adam interjected, grabbing the reins of the conversation again, "I asked Anathema and her boyfriend but they said they were too busy, which is rubbish if you ask me 'cause all they seem to do is go for walks in the woods and stare at each other." There was a chorus of agreeing noises, and Crowley thought privately that Anathema's refusal probably had more to do with not wanting to be in charge of the Them on a paintball course than anything she was busy with. 

"So I thought you probably count as an adult even if you're not a responsible one so I wondered if you'd take us. You can bring your friend if you like," Adam continued, magnanimously, "although he might need some different clothes. Mum gives me hell if I get stuff on my good clothes."

"Oh." Crowley said. He'd been rather enjoying listening to Adam babble up till now. "Um. I can't right now, Adam. It's not really a good time."

"Oh, OK. I 'spose we'll try Mr. Shadwell next then, he seems like he'd like shootin' stuff but I dunno if he'll count as responsible." Adam sounded cripplingly disappointed in the way only an eleven-year-old can. 

"Sorry." Crowley said, wretchedly.

"S'OK. Are you alright Mr. Anthony? You sound kind of sad."

"Erm. Not really. My...friend...had to go away and I dunno when he'll be able to come back. Or if he'll be able to come back at all."

"Oh no, that sounds awful! I had to go on holiday last year without Wensley and Pepper and Brian and it was terrible, just two weeks in Scotland in a rainy caravan and nobody to have fun with at all. I hope he does come back, I can't imagine if I had to go away forever and ever. You sure a bit of paintball wouldn't cheer you up in the meantime? I'll let you choose the best gun."

Crowley laughed. Adam really was a normal human boy, albeit one who could apparently guess telephone numbers at will. His powers really would be something to be reckoned with when he grew up. 

Powers, he thought. Not Satanic or Angelic powers, but something closer to his _Grandmother's_. Crowley glanced at the sink and felt an idea start to form.

"Actually, Adam, I might be coming to Tadfield after all. Can't make any promises about the paintball, but I can get you some of those Laser Quest guns if you like. You can play anytime you like that way, out in the woods. I just need a little favour in return."

"Proper laser guns?" Adam asked, perking up considerably, "Like they have on Star Wars?"

"Sure, why not." 

No reason not to jazz things up a bit, Crowley thought. Nothing that could blind anyone or do any damage, but he reckoned he could miracle up something that made a pretty decent light show and "pew, pew" sounds.

"Cor!" 

Crowley could almost hear the battles taking place in Adam's mind. They would be epic, and everyone in Tadfield would live in fear until the batteries ran out. 

"That'd be great, Mr Anthony! What's the favour?"

"Oh, it's easy, really. I just need you to read something for me."

"Well I'm really good at reading so I'm sure I can do it. Can you not read, then?"

"Adam, you can't ask him that!" Pepper hissed in a stage-whisper, "My mum says not everyone is fortunate enough to have access to a proper education. He could be embarrassed about it."

"Sorry, Mr. Anthony," Adam said, "It's not a big deal if you can't read, 'specially if you didn't have good education back when you were little."

"I think it's fair to say they didn't have any education back when I was little." Crowley rolled his eyes. "Listen, I'll be in Tadfield tomorrow afternoon. Where should I meet you all?"

Adam hummed. There was a brief discussion about whose parents would be OK with a strange man in sunglasses popping over to drop off some laser guns. Pepper, who Crowley had a sneaking suspicion was the brains of the Them's operation, suggested somewhere called Jasmine Cottage, which seemed to meet with approval.

"It's where Anathema and her boyfriend live," Adam explained. "You met her before, I think. She's a witch but she's a nice witch, and anyway you're a demon so you're probably OK with witches, right?"

"Absolutely," Crowley said, smiling softly, "I'll see you there. Caio."

Crowley heard Brian ask what "Caio" meant before his thumb hit the End Call button. He was sure they'd come up with something vastly better than what it actually meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the short chapters, y'all. This is just how I do things apparently. :/


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check the other fic in this series if you want to know more about Gabriel's treadmill and our poor friend Pravuil.

"-And it's just so invigorating, Aziraphale, you really should try it. Gets the old Celestial Essence flowing!"

Aziraphale blinked. His head felt strange, like it was filled with cotton wool. More importantly, he realized he hadn't heard a word of what Gabriel had been saying.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" He said, rubbing at his temple with his thumb, "I must have drifted off for a second there, dreadfully rude of me."

Gabriel huffed and pointed to the corner of his office, somewhere in the indeterminate distance. There seemed to be some sort of contraption sitting there, looking sleekly efficient. 

"The treadmill, Aziraphale. Honestly, it's as if there's nothing between those ears of yours sometimes."

"Treadmill?" Aziraphale squinted at it. He wondered what treads were and why one would possibly need to mill them.

"You run on it." Gabriel explained. 

"I see. How inventive. And what does that achieve, exactly?"

Gabriel gave him a _look,_ and Aziraphale made a mental note not to ask about it again.

"Listen, I'll get you one for your new office, alright? Then you can try it out yourself."

"New...office?" 

Aziraphale frowned. He'd lost the thread of this conversation at some point, and now it was unravelling around him.

"You're being promoted, Aziraphale!" Gabriel said, beaming. "Six thousand years of sterling work deserves a reward, don't you think? You're coming home, permanently. Got a fantastic position all lined up for you."

"Oh."

Aziraphale felt sick. Technically he had no stomach to feel sick with, but that didn't stop the echo of nausea from washing over his heavenly form.

"Are you sure?" Aziraphale said. Gabriel frowned. 

"I mean, I'm grateful, obviously, it's always nice to be appreciated." He continued. "I just thought, well, the bookshop was going rather well and the humans really do need _someone_ there to make sure they don't get into trouble."

"Actually, Aziraphale, I did want to talk to you about that. Things are getting a bit more, well, _violent_ down there these days. Your discorporation was a bit of a shock to all of us, to be honest--"

"I'm sorry, my _discorporation_?"

"You don't remember?" Gabriel opened a folder on his desk and began to rummage through the papers. "Ah, here we go," he said, holding up what looked like a police report, "A human by the name of 'Johnny "The Knife" McKenzie' visited you several times, trying to get you to sell your shop. It seems he took matters into his own hands."

"Are you sure? I seem to remember the last time we spoke he'd decided to become an orthodontist."

Aziraphale had only needed a little angelic persuasion to deflect McKenzie; pursuading a bright young man with an unfortunate fixation for causing pain in interesting ways toward dentistry had almost been too easy. This didn't seem right. The last time he'd checked, Jimmy had been at the top of his class.

"Well, he clearly found a life of crime more appealing," Gabriel said, closing the folder sharply. For a split second, Aziraphale almost argued. He _wanted_ to argue, but you just didn't argue with an Archangel. It simply wasn't done. Gabriel looked at him sympathetically.

"Listen, I know you had a good time down there, but we really need someone on Earth who can handle themselves. Someone a little bit less…"

"Soft?" Aziraphale suggested, sadly.

"Well, you said it, not me. But I'm not going to argue with you, Aziraphale. Anyway, there _is_ some good news, it's not all doom and gloom and discorporations!"

"Oh?" 

Aziraphale couldn't see that being recalled from Earth could possibly have a positive side. His life had been long and interesting and although he had lived for six thousand years, it seemed far too soon for it to be over. Aziraphale supposed he had been rather lonely without the company of any other angels, but his books had been a great comfort. The bookshop was his home and he'd been _happy_ there. 

"We've found you a wonderful position in the Celestial Library. All of Humanity's most worthy works in one place. Sounds like your sort of place, right?"

"Oh! Oh, really? That does sound rather nice." Aziraphale couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. His fingers itched at the thought of all those books; the accumulated knowledge of sixty centuries, all of it at his fingertips. Nobody trying to buy any of the books, just reading them in silent contemplation. It _did_ sound rather good.

"Of course, Aziraphale! I can't think of anyone better suited. I think you're really gonna love it. In fact, why don't we go there right now? I want to introduce you to your co-workers."

***

Heaven's library was just as vast as all its other buildings, a towering crystalline spire with windows on all sides. Aziraphale was strangely disappointed. He'd always secretly hoped, when he thought of the place that great human works went when they were deemed worthy, that it would look something like the lost Library of Alexandria. Aziraphale remembered it like it was yesterday; the walls of scrolls, the high windows sending shafts of light through the dusty air, the scholars lost in the joy of their work. As far as Aziraphale was concerned, the fire that erased it from existence was the worst disaster in the history of human knowledge. A Library should be sanctum, he thought, not an _aquarium_.

Gabriel led him through the big, automatic sliding glass doors of the tower and into an atrium that stretched all the way to the top, lost amongst the celestial clouds. Above him, floors of shelves ringed the glass walls, with large enough intervals between them to flood the entire structure with holy light. A human architect might have called it a breathtaking tour-de-force of form and function. Aziraphale thought it was hideous. 

On the ground floor, a central desk was surrounded by a large reading area; numerous long tables with chairs designed to promote perfect posture. A few angels were studying, poring over books in silence. The only noise was the rustle of pages and the soft hum of a few hoverboards ascending or descending the long, spiraling ramp that led to the upper floors. 

Aziraphale swallowed. This was wrong, all wrong. Nowhere secluded to sit with a glass of wine and read, no comfortable sofas to spread oneself out on. Bright light everywhere, which would fade the texts and strain the eyes. As he glanced at the shelves, he realized every book was bound in identical perfect white, with the titles picked out in gold script. All brand new, always and forever. If he had still had adrenal glands, they would have sent him the message to _run_. Instead, Aziraphale pulled anxiously at his collar and tried to control his rapid, unnecessary breathing.

"Ah, here we are!" Gabriel said, smiling expansively. "I don't think you've met Jophiel, Angel of Knowledge. Jophiel, this is the Principality Aziraphale. Aziraphale, Jophiel." 

"Lovely to meet you," Aziraphale said, holding out his hand. Jophiel looked at it, confused.

"You sort of hold hands and waggle them up and down," Gabriel explained. "It's a human thing. Great fun!"

Jophiel grimaced and grasped Aziraphale's hand loosely. Aziraphale shook it as gently as he could.

Jophiel was tall, thin and serious. She smiled faintly as Aziraphale let go of her hand.

"It'll be good to have the help," she said, gazing out across the library floor. "The work will never end. So many texts to review, so many works to sort and catalogue. I'm happy you'll be joining us."

Jophiel didn't look very happy, but Aziraphale supposed he didn't really know her yet. It was conceivable that a pensive expression was, in fact, her happy face.

"And this is Pravuil, Angel of Records."

Gabriel gestured to a short, nervous-looking angel with sandy brown hair. He accepted Aziraphale's handshake with something of a death-grip, and Aziraphale wondered if the little chap was quite alright. Angels certainly didn't usually sweat this much.

"Yep. Nice to meet you." Pravuil said, looking at a fixed point somewhere to the left of Aziraphale's head. "Definitely never heard of you before, don't know anything about you at all." 

Gabriel clapped him jovially on the back, and Pravuil winced. 

"Our friend Pravuil here collects the more mundane records of Humanity's divine acts." Gabriel said, squeezing Pravuil's shoulder. "He works upstairs. Very, very busy, this one. I doubt you'll see much of him."

"Well, it was nice to meet you in person, anyway," Aziraphale said. "I believe I've sent reports up to you in the past. All filed away very efficiently, I'm sure." He smiled politely at Pravuil. Lord knew Gabriel could be a bit much sometimes, and it looked like the poor thing could use a friend. 

Pravuil suddenly went very pale, but Aziraphale chalked it up to social anxiety.

"Okay, it looks like you're going to settle in here nicely, Aziraphale. Let's show you your office and then I'll get out of your hair. Lots to do, after all!"

The office was at the back of the building, a white door with his name on it next to an identical door with Jophiel's name. The room inside was a white cube, with one wall made up of a floor-to-ceiling window. Outside, there was a little enclosed garden made entirely from artfully arranged white pebbles. There was a desk, with a towering pile of books on the side marked "IN". On the other side were two boxes, labelled "Reject" and "Accept". Aziraphale didn't need a detailed induction to figure out what his new job involved.

Gabriel turned to leave, and Aziraphale suddenly felt very, very alone. 

"Welcome to your new home, Aziraphale." Gabriel said, smiling as he closed the office door behind him.

***

Back on Earth, Crowley was driving at 110mph through the country lanes toward Tadfield. On the back seat, the manacles that Hastur had used were jostling about every time he took a corner too hard, rustling in three layers of thick plastic bags. Next to them sat a big black duffel bag filled with custom Laser weaponry. Crowley had spent a good few hours making sure they were just the right side of believability to be human-made toys, complete with an instruction manual in poorly translated English and Simplified Chinese. He'd also chosen some stunningly irritating sound effects to match the light show they produced. The guns had two settings: Loud and Very Loud. He hoped Adam Young and his friends knew how lucky they were to have a Guardian Demon.

The countryside was just starting to look familiar when Crowley felt the weight of the car change abruptly, and smelled the strangely sweet scent of rotting flesh.

"Where are you going, then, Crawly? Don't tell me you've got some stupid little plan up your sleeve. It won't work, you know. They'll never let him go."

Crowley gripped the wheel, his knuckles showing white through his skin. 

"You can try for the next six thousand years," Hastur continued, mournfully. "He ain't ever coming back."

"Look, you stupid bastard," Crowley said, taking a corner fast enough that Hastur was thrown against the window and yelped, "I get that you're mad I killed your, what? Friend? Partner?" Crowley made a face as an unwelcome thought wormed its way into his brain. " _Lover,_ maybe? Eugh, I can't believe I just said that. I really, really don't want to know what Ligur was to you, OK?" 

"I don't think I knew myself 'til after he was gone. Not really." Hastur said, staring balefully at the road ahead.

Crowley felt his stomach do a triple flip off the high-diving board into a sea of guilt. That wasn't a denial of any of the scattershot suggestions Crowley had thrown out. Hastur and Ligur had been, well. Hastur _and_ Ligur.

"Shit." He said, swallowing thickly.

"Shit indeed, Crawly." 

"Sorry," Crowley said, surprised to find that he actually meant it. "It really was him or, well, _everything_."

Hastur nodded, looking at Crowley with his cold, black eyes.

"Yeah, I get that. Thing is, I reckon he was _my_ everything, so I really couldn't give a shit about you saving your little Earth."

Crowley realized he was shaking. It wasn't that he regretted what had happened to Ligur ( _when you murdered him in cold blood,_ his brain supplied, helpfully), but he felt wretched whenever he thought about it. Knowing that Ligur had, in whatever twisted capacity, had someone who _loved him_ made it so much worse.

"Truly, I am sorry. Admittedly, I would've been a lot more up for trying to make amends if you hadn't murdered my best friend."

"Your best friend? Not your _lover_ , then?" Hastur said, putting a great deal more emphasis on the word than was strictly necessary.

Crowley shuddered. He could've done with never, ever hearing Hastur say that word. His face was heating up with embarrassment and everything was horrible.

"I am not talking about this with you!" Crowley squawked, "Not if I live until the Sun explodes, or until the Universe drifts apart, or until its component atoms cease to vibrate. At no point will we _ever_ be talking about this."

"Prude. I always wondered what it'd be like to do an angel."

Crowley slammed his head into the car's horn a few times. This couldn't be happening. There was no way this was happening.

It continued to happen. Hastur leered at him, clearly enjoying himself.

"Do they cry afterwards? Get all emotional about getting their perfect white wings a little dirty?" 

"Why don't you ask them yourself!" Crowley yelled, "Since you're apparently colluding with Heaven these days!" 

Crowley held up his wrist, revealing the ugly blisters the manacles had left behind. Hastur suddenly went very quiet.

"Careful, Crowley. That's a nasty accusation to throw around."

"Well, maybe you should've thought of that before you got involved with them. "Downstairs said we have to _leave you alone_ ," you said. I bet Lord Beelzebub would be very interested to hear you've been doing Heaven's dirty work _and_ saying a big "fuck you" to that particular rule in the process."

Hastur glared at him.

"He said it would make me feel better," he said, "But it hasn't made any bloody difference. Angels are all a bunch of lying bastards."

" _Which_ angelsaid you'd feel better?" Crowley asked, but Hastur was already gone.

As the car passed the sign for Tadfield, Crowley said a sincere, frustrated, deeply unorthodox prayer to the Antichrist himself.

A few miles away at Jasmine Cottage, Adam Young told Anathema Device to put the kettle on. They were expecting company, after all.


	5. Chapter 5

Crowley sat in the Bentley outside Jasmine Cottage for ten minutes, taking long, deep breaths and checking his hair in the mirror. Somehow, having to talk to people about what had happened to Aziraphale felt like made it all real. Aziraphale had been there, a soft presence in the background of Crowley's mind and sometimes a torturous one at the front of it, for _six thousand years_. Without him Crowley felt lost, cast out into the darkness without a map. Just like the first time, all those millennia ago. It showed on his face, no matter how much he tried to hide it. The humans would probably be sympathetic and concerned, damn them. Crowley thought that if anyone tried to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder, he might shatter like glass. 

Instead, he almost jumped completely out of his skin when someone knocked on the window of the Bentley. Adam Young was waving cheerily on the other side of the glass.

"Scuse me, Mr. Anthony," Adam said loudly, golden curls shining in the afternoon sun, "but are you going to come inside? You've been sitting out here for ages and your tea's gettin' cold."

Crowley swallowed, trying to shove his persistent anxiety down into the pit of his stomach. 

"Yep. Just coming. Had to...uh...fix my hair." Reluctantly, Crowley got out and fetched the bags from the back seat. The black one he handed to Adam, who grinned from ear to ear when he realized what was inside. 

"Now, Adam, be careful with those. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." 

He lowered his sunglasses and winked. Adam laughed. If Crowley had still been gainfully employed by Hell, he would've gotten a commendation for all the mayhem that the local populace were in for. 

Crowley picked up the other bag gingerly, holding it at arm's length. He followed Adam up the path into the cottage, noting how overgrown the garden was. It was a riot of wildflowers and rambling roses, long grass waving in the breeze. Probably appropriate for a witch, Crowley thought, but not good for the plants. He made a mental note to have to have a chat with Anathema about proper horticultural discipline as soon as this mess was over with. 

There was a cup of tea waiting on the kitchen table, along with a plate of biscuits. The cottage was dim and dusty with books lying about on every surface, and for a second, Crowley was so vividly reminded of Aziraphale that he thought his heart would break. This was the sort of place the angel had talked about moving to, in the warm dark of their shared bed once they had finally let themselves be truly open.  _ A cottage _ , Aziraphale had said, eyes shining with reflected moonlight from the bedroom window _ , maybe on the South Downs? Just the two of us?  _ Crowley had told him that sounded like heaven.

"Here, let me take that," Anathema said, gently taking the bag of manacles from Crowley's unresisting hand. She pressed the teacup into it instead, and Crowley forced himself to stop shaking so as not to spill the tea.

Anathema, her pasty-looking boyfriend and Adam's little friends were all gathered around the kitchen table, apparently waiting for him.

"Look, guys!" Adam said, brandishing the bag of Laser guns triumphantly. He went to open the bag, but Anathema put out a hand to stop him.

"Adam, if you get those out you'll forget all about what Mr. Crowley asked you to do, won't you? And, I can't believe I have to say this, but absolutely no weaponry in the cottage."

"I'll just put them out of the way," she continued, shoving them up on top of the kitchen cupboard.

There was a chorus of protest from Adam and his friends, but Anathema silenced them with a look. 

"Please sit, Mr. Crowley. Adam tells me something has happened to your...partner?"

Crowley sat, and tried to process Anathema's question. Partner sounded almost right, he supposed, but somehow not enough.

"Husband?" Anathema hazarded, when Crowley didn't respond.

Closer. Much closer. Still probably not enough for the complexities of their relationship, but that was certainly what Crowley had been hoping for before Hastur had shown up and thrown a kitchen knife in the works. 

"Mmm. Close enough. And it's just Crowley. Or Anthony, if you like."

"I didn't know you were married, Mr. Anthony," Pepper said, "it's nice that you were able to since you're a demon and he's an angel. Did have to have a civil ceremony on account of God not being invited?"

"I don't see why it shouldn't be allowed," Adam interjected, "if you're in love and all that. Angels and demons are just people with feathers. No reason they shouldn't go marrying one another."

"And magic powers, and immortality, and probably all sorts of dangerous plans that could get us all killed," said Wensleydale, eyeing Crowley suspiciously. Crowley wondered how much of what happened during the failed apocalypse these humans actually remembered. It seemed to be a lot more than the rest of humanity, who just had a vague memory of some really interesting news headlines.

"He seems alright to me," Brian said, grabbing another biscuit. "He brought us guns, that's pretty cool for an adult."

Crowley thought about the little velvet box under his sofa and resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands.

"Look," he said, putting a halt to the burgeoning squabble over whether acting as an arms dealer to a gang of children counted as cool or extremely  _ uncool _ behaviour, "We aren't married. Not yet, anyway. I was going to ask him but I didn't get the chance because someone murdered him, Okay?"

The Them fell silent. Murder was serious business, after all. Anathema glared at Crowley, who was beginning to realize that violent killings might not be an appropriate topic of conversation for the under-twelves.

"Uh, I mean. He's not  _ dead _ dead, just got sent back to heaven for a bit. That's sort of how it works for us. We get sent home, so to speak." Crowley sighed. "Thing is, I'm pretty sure they'll never let him come back down to Earth, which means I'll probably never see him again."

Adam frowned. "Are you saying that someone killed him and now he's  _ grounded _ ?"

In spite of himself, Crowley let out a short bark of laughter. The kid had pretty much hit the nail on the head. A vision of what "being sent to his room" might involve for Aziraphale flashed unbidden into his mind, which sobered him up considerably. Everything up there was cold and white and sterile, all glass and marble like a high-end shopping mall. Wherever Aziraphale was being held, it would be as far from a warm, cosy bookshop full of all of his favourite things as it was possible to get.

"Well, that's just not fair," Pepper said, jumping up from her seat, "He helped us save the world! He shouldn't get grounded for saving the world!"

"I did, sort of," Adam piped up, "although Mum said I could have time off for good behaviour if I tidied my room."

It was beginning to be clear to Crowley that the Them had some very strong feelings about unjustified groundings.

"Wherever Aziraphale is right now, it's already so tidy he won't be getting any time off for the rest of eternity," Crowley said, miserably. "I don't suppose there's any chance you could restore his corporeal form like you did last time, is there?"

Adam frowned briefly, concentrating, and then shook his head.

"I just tried, it didn't work. Last time he was here but in the wrong body, not off the Earth completely. I don't think I can just summon people out of nothing."

He shrugged apologetically. Crowley supposed it had been too much to hope for that Adam could just fix everything with a snap of his fingers.

"In that case," Crowley said, gesturing to the bag in Anathema's hand, "I was hoping you could take a look at these handcuffs and tell me which angel I have to-" he paused, remembering the age of his audience, "- _ persuade _ to let him go."

"I'll just get these out, shall I?" Anathema said, fishing the manacles out of the layers of bags and putting them down in the centre of the table. "They look like they have some kind of runic inscription, but it doesn't look like Futhark or Anglo-Saxon." 

Crowley saw Newt glance up from his coffee, which he'd been nursing in the corner in an effort to stay out of the way, with a look of pure adoration in his eyes. Yeah, Crowley thought, I know that feeling. I know how much it makes your heart ache when they do something smart. Aziraphale had always been so beautifully, deviously clever.

"I don't recognize the alphabet, but it's definitely magical. I can have a look in one of my books, just give me a sec…"

"Let me have a look," Adam said, reaching out and picking up the bindings. Crowley held his breath. 

"Looks like funny squiggles but I can understand it. Weird." Adam turned them over in his hands, mouth moving slightly as he made out the words.

"Cool, more like," said Brian, "I wish there was a secret language only I could read, I could leave rude notes all over the place and no-one would know."

Adam's eyes had gone worryingly clear, and Crowley was reminded of the moment on the airfield when Adam had stared through his soul as easily as a pane of glass. 

"It says: "Let these chains bind the Serpent of Eden in holy light that he may not act against our agent, by the Heavenly authority of the Archangel Gabriel."

"Gabriel, that utter bastard! I should have known he was behind this." Crowley felt Anathema glaring at him again and chose to ignore it. He was a demon, after all. Swearing in front of children was probably demonic behaviour.

"The serpent of Eden, is that you then?" Pepper asked, looking at him with awe, "My Mum says Eve was the first feminist, 

on account of choosing knowledge over ignorance and teaching men right from wrong." She frowned for a moment. "Even if most of them can't seem to get it right these days."

"That was me, alright, kid. Architect of the original sin. Your Mum sounds like a smart woman." Crowley said through gritted teeth.

"Okay, you lot," Newt said calmly, clearly sensing Crowley's barely concealed rage. "Time to take those toys Mr. Crowley brought and go make some trouble. I think this is going to be an adult sort of conversation from now on."

The Them were bundled out of the door, along with their bag of guns. A few minutes later the sounds of a pitched Laser battle began to echo through the woods. 

Back in the Cottage, the wood of the table was starting to smoke and smoulder where Crowley gripped it. Gabriel, that  _ absolute wanker _ . He should've known the Archangel just couldn't let it lie, couldn't let them have their quiet little life together. Maybe breathing hellfire into his face had been a bad move in retrospect. 

"Are you alright, Crowley?" Anathema asked, gently.

"No."

"Would you like some more tea while we figure out how to get your Aziraphale back?" She asked, laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing.

"...Yes, please."

"Newt, could you put the kettle on, please? The stovetop one, not the electric. I'll go and fetch some books. If you could just let go of the table…"

Crowley released it. There were deep scorch-marks where his hands had been, which he swiftly miracled away. Anathema smiled her thanks as she disappeared into one of the Cottage's other rooms. Newt put a cup of milky tea down in front of him, and pushed the plate of biscuits toward him. 

"Sorry about your husband, it sounds awful, what happened. I can't imagine if anything happened to Anathema…"

"They made me watch him die, you know. I watched the light fade from his eyes and I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it." Crowley said bitterly, aware that he was being needlessly cruel to an innocent (if tactless) young man. Sometimes you had to just get it out there, though, and the only person with whom Crowley had been able to talk to about the experience of watching Aziraphale bleed out on the concrete so far had also been the one holding the knife. 

"Jesus Christ," Newt said, eyes wide with horror.

"Him too. That was a long time ago, though."

Crowley sipped his tea, while Newt sat in uncomfortable silence.

Anathema bustled back into the kitchen and dropped a huge pile of tomes down onto the table. 

"What do you know about summoning occult entities?" She asked, rolling up her sleeves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Newt has fried 3 electric kettles in a month so he's usually banned from tea making duties.


	6. Chapter 6

"Aziraphale, we have talked about this already," Jophiel said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "We absolutely _cannot_ accept any works by the poet John Milton."

Aziraphale sighed. Jophiel had been right about the backlog of human literature waiting to be catalogued. They were barely working their way through the seventeenth century; it seemed that the invention of the printing press and the explosion of creativity it sparked had thrown up a serious roadblock in the process. Fortunately, Aziraphale had read a lot of the books in question over the years, and had happily begun the task of shunting his favourites into the "Accept" pile. Unfortunately, most of his favourites didn't seem to qualify.

"But..but... _Paradise Lost_ is one of the most significant pieces of religious critique in human history! We simply must include it, it's _inconceivable_ not to."

"Religious _critique_ , Aziraphale?" Jophiel said, looking pointedly down her nose at him, "This is not a critique. It's _heresy_."

"I suppose on the surface it may _seem_ somewhat heretical, but this is a very important milestone in our relationship with Humanity! They question us, yes, but they're _supposed_ to. Otherwise how could they have the free will to choose the right path?"

Jophiel scowled, flipping through the hefty book to a section highlighted with gold.

" _The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven,_ " she read, lips pursed as if the words were ashes in her mouth. "Really, Aziraphale! What in all the Kingdoms made you think we would accept this? It is obviously rejected, that is all there is to say on the matter."

Aziraphale sagged visibly. This was the fourth near-identical argument he'd had with Jophiel, and it was still technically only his first day. Or, at least, he thought so. Time in Heaven seemed to stretch on and on forever, like an eternal after-school study period with no chance of ever being collected. 

He hadn't won any of the arguments. Jophiel was a seemingly immovable object, a rock for Aziraphale to smash himself to pieces on again and again.

"Right, of course. Of course." Aziraphale said, mournfully. He wondered briefly if he could sneak the book away, hide it somewhere in his office, maybe even keep it in his own little secret library under his desk, but before he could do anything Jophiel snapped her fingers and dissolved Heavens only copy of _Paradise Lost_ from existence. Aziraphale made a choked sound and attempted to cover it with a cough.

"Erm. Ahem. I...I suppose I'll just be going back to work, then."

"If you would, and please try to _think_ before you bring something for approval. Please close the door on your way out."

Aziraphale shuffled back to his office, shut his own door behind him, and collapsed into his chair. He looked at the pile of books waiting to be judged and felt the begginings of tears prickle at the corners of his eyes. 

It wasn't _fair_. This wasn't how Heaven was supposed to be.

Somewhere in that stack of waiting books were nearly all of Aziraphale's favourite pieces; books that had moved his _soul_ , books that had changed the way he thought about the world. Books that had made him feel a little less alone and a little more understood. 

He knew with a cold certainty that none of them would be clean or sterile enough to make into Heaven's Library. 

Eventually he would reach poor, dear Oscar's books and have to put them all into the reject pile. It just didn't bear thinking about. Oscar had been a true friend in a time when Aziraphale had been questioning almost everything about himself. He remembered an evening spent getting deeply drunk together in the gaslight glow, sometime around 1894. Aziraphale had been crying, pouring his heart out about...something that must have been very important at the time. Oscar had lent him a handkerchief and read aloud from his new play, doing all of the voices with great enthusiasm. Aziraphale couldn't remember a time when he had laughed as much.

That was the problem with living for so long, Aziraphale thought. Even the most important memories slipped away eventually, scattered by the relentless winds of change. They became blurred by distance, details obscured until they no longer existed at all. Humans lived such short lives. They might remember Oscar now, but in a thousand years, or two perhaps, they would forget. All that joyous wit and wordplay lost from the world forever. 

Aziraphale wasn't just tasked with preserving literature, but with _condemning_ it too. For an angel who had jealously hoarded thousands of books containing humanity's hopes, fears and loves for centuries, it was unbearable.

Guiltily, Aziraphale realized he really, really needed a drink. And then, as slowly and as horribly as the sun rising after a night of heavy partying, it dawned on Aziraphale that he would never have one again.

Angels, of course, didn't drink. All except for one angel, who had just had a vision of an eternity in Heaven stone cold sober and almost passed out from the shock. Not only that, but an eternity without _food_. No more Châteauneuf-du-Pape, no more crêpes or crème brûlé. No more sneaky little miracle-trips across the channel to stock up on cheese and wine when he was sure Gabriel wasn't paying attention.

 _Oh_ , Aziraphale thought. _I'm really going to miss the French_ . _They may have tried to execute me once, but the things they could do with pastry! Sublime!_

Aziraphale put his head in his hands and resolutely did not cry. If he started now, he thought, who knew if he'd ever stop. 

Eternity would be a long time to spend weeping, after all.

***

"Okay," Anathema said, standing up and brushing the chalk dust from her skirt, "That should do it. Summoning an angel is a bit more complicated than summoning a demon, but I think we can make it work. Now we just need to add his name."

The furniture in the tiny living room of Jasmine Cottage had been pushed back into the corners, making room on the floor for a huge, intricate chalk design. It was a circle of complicated sigils, complete with five appropriately dribbly candles on its outer edge. Looking at the symbols made Crowley's teeth ache. This was Heaven stuff, which meant it was fundamentally opposed to his demonic energy. The circle was barely completed and he could already feel it _loathing_ him.

Anathema handed Crowley a piece of chalk. He looked at her blankly.

"You need to write his name in," Anathema explained, "His real one, the one he would use in Heaven. You do know it, don't you?"

Crowley blinked at her slowly. 

"Yeah." he said, eventually "I do." 

He knelt down and began to draw, in long, swooping lines, the symbol that Aziraphale had shown him late one evening in the dim sanctuary of the bedroom over the bookshop. There had been hazy lamplight and horrible tartan sheets, and all of Aziraphale's skin pressed deliciously against Crowley's own. _This is me_ , Aziraphale had said, idly tracing the symbol into the skin of Crowley's forearm. _Really me, I mean. My true name. I want you to have it, love._ Crowley had wanted to ask him to burn it into him, right then and there, with holy fire that would leave a scar on his arm that went right down to his soul. He hadn't. Aziraphale wouldn't hurt him, couldn't bring himself to cause Crowley pain even if Crowley asked for it, so he'd burned it into his brain instead. _It looks like you,_ Crowley had said, grinning wickedly, _all curves and fussy little loopy bits._ Aziraphale had laughed, his soft smile warming Crowley from the inside out.

"There you are," Crowley said, softly, finishing the symbol and straightening up. With the sign set like a jewel in the center of the spellwork everything was finally ready. Anathema opened an enormous book and began to chant a flurry of words in Latin and Aramaic and Sanskrit that made Crowley's ears ring. There should have been a storm, or a magical wind that whipped through the room and sent the pages flying, Crowley thought. Something properly dramatic. Instead, the summoning was accompanied by the sound of birds singing in the garden and Newt doing the washing up in the kitchen. 

There was a pop, as if of pressure equalising deep within one's ear, and Aziraphale was standing in the middle circle. Or rather, he was sitting on a chair that no longer existed and promptly fell over. 

"Ow," he said, followed by: "Where on Earth am I?"

"Angel!"

Crowley desperately wanted to reach out and help him up, but the circle spat ghostly white-blue sparks at him when he approached it. It was now heavenly territory, he reminded himself, a tiny little embassy in a foreign plane of existance.

"Angel, are you alright?" Crowley said, his voice high and strained.

"Well, my rear end is a little worse for wear, no thanks to you people." Aziraphale said, grumpily. "Honestly, I can't think why anyone would bother summoning _me_ , of all the multitudes of angels to choose from."

Aziraphale righted himself, making a show of fussing over the chalk dust on his cream overcoat. It wasn't his usual one, wasn't even one Crowley had seen before. Nor, come to think of it, was the white waistcoat and bow tie combination. There wasn't a speck of tartan on Aziraphale anywhere, which definitely wasn't right.

"Now then, what can I do for y--" Aziraphale looked up, right through his sunglasses and into Crowley's eyes, and exclaimed:

"--Good Lord! Is that a _demon_?"

Crowley rolled his eyes.

"Yes, Angel, obviously I'm still a demon! Did you hit your head or something?"

"Not to my knowledge, no. Goodness me, a demon and, if I'm not mistaken, a _witch_. What nefarious purpose have you two dragged me here for, then? Out with it."

Aziraphale folded his arms and put on what Crowley privately thought of as his "customer face." The customer face had banished many a well-intentioned book enthusiast from Aziraphale's shop over the years, but Crowley wasn't sure why the hell it was being directed at _him_.

"Listen, Aziraphale, we've only got until the candles burn down, so please can you stop being an idiot and listen? Did Gabriel do anything to hurt you?"

"What? No? Whyever would you ask that?"

"Uh, I dunno, how about because he's a total bastard?" Crowley suggested, "And because he had you discorporated?"

All of the colour suddenly drained out of Aziraphale's face. 

"Now, now, you can't go around saying things like that!" Aziraphale said, avoiding meeting Crowley's gaze. "Gabriel is an Archangel, he would _never_ hurt a fellow angel! I don't know who you are or why you called me here but I won't have you slandering--"

"--You. What? Angel, you _don't know who I am_?" 

Crowley temporarily forgot how to speak, mouth hanging open stupidly as he watched Aziraphale's face scrunch up in confusion.

"No, I haven't the foggiest! Why, should I?"

"A- I- Angel," Crowley managed, forcing his vocal cords to obey with sheer force of will, "we've been best friends for _six thousand years_."

"We haven't!" Aziraphale said, voice rising with poorly concealed panic, "We are _not_ friends! We could never be friends, how would that even work? I am an angel, and you are a demon! And, and," he took a deep, shivering breath, "and besides, I would remember something like that!"

"Oh, angel," Crowley said, miserably, "what happened to you? What did they _do_?"

"Nothing! Nothing, except I lost my bookshop, and I have to spend eternity in this awful farce of a library, and I can't even be upset about it because it's literally Heaven." Aziraphale said, gasping for breath as he began to let out big, wracking sobs, "And now I'm down here, so _close_ to my home, but I'm trapped in this _stupid_ circle and you're feeding me all of these lies about being _friends_ with a demon." 

Crowley wondered if it was possible for his entirely superfluous heart to break. It certainly felt like it was.

"Not lies, Aziraphale. I don't lie to you, remember? Never."

"No, I don't bloody remember! I don't know what you're talking about! I've been alone for my entire life, thank you very much, and I don't need you pretending like you know me!"

Aziraphale fished a white handkerchief out of his coat and angrily rubbed his tears away. 

"I'd like you to send me back, now. I've had quite enough of this tomfoolery."

" _Tomfoolery_?" Crowley snapped, "We've known each other since Eden! I've bloody well been _in love with you_ since you gave away your flaming sword! Six thousand years, Aziraphale, and I didn't even get to hold your fucking hand until a month ago!"

Crowley felt the rage in his chest gutter and fade, quenched by the look of utter panic in Aziraphale's eyes.

"No, no, you can't possibly know about that," Aziraphale murmured, kneading his hands together fretfully, "I have never, in my whole existence told a _single soul_ about what happened to my sword."

"You told _me_ ," Crowley said, taking off his glasses and looking at Aziraphale with honest, open eyes, "and then you sheltered me from the very first rain when by rights you ought to have kicked me off the wall at first sight. And I thought to myself, "Crowley, you had better not let this beautiful, kind, selfless idiot be broken the way that you were, because he's got more good in him than the rest of the Heavenly host put together."

Aziraphale opened his mouth to speak, and with textbook terrible timing, the candles around the edge of the circle all burned in unison.

With a whip-crack, the air rushed in to fill the space where Aziraphale had been, and Crowley kicked the nearest candle stub clear across the room in frustration.


	7. Chapter 7

Crowley?" Anathema was saying, "Crowley, please say something. You've been staring at the wall for fifteen minutes."

"He hasn't blinked once," Newt whispered, "is that normal?"

"Normal for him, maybe? I think if he can physically hold his eyes open for that long that means it's okay?"

Newt smiled at her, amused but utterly unconvinced.

"You don't sound very sure. Did you doze off during the bit about demon biology when you were at witch school?"

Anathema rolled her eyes affectionately. 

"I'm self taught, jackass. And anyway, according to the books demons are meant to come with great big horns and a pointy tail, not stupidly tight trousers and designer shades. They weren't super accurate, as it turns out."

"Were they nice?" Newt said, unbearably smug. Anathema tried not to smile at him, but failed hopelessly.

Crowley thought that if he had to sit through any more of this he might be sick. He blinked once, slowly and pointedly, just to let them know he was, in fact, listening. Anathema blushed and quickly decided there was something that needed doing in the kitchen, and that she definitely needed Newt's assistance. Crowley breathed a silent sigh of relief as they scurried away. It was hard enough to think through the fog of rage and despair filling his head without Anathema and her idiot flirting with each other in front of him. 

He closed his eyes. After the circle had closed and Aziraphale had been unceremoniously dragged back to Heaven, Crowley had slumped onto the cottage's ancient sofa and tried desperately to figure out what the Hell had just happened.

His angel had looked at him as if he was a complete stranger, and that had hurt almost as much as watching him die. 

Aziraphale didn't remember him. It was almost certainly Gabriel's doing. Crowley could smell his brand of self-righteous meddling all over it. That dickhead of an Archangel had done something to Aziraphale's memories, had crossed Crowley out of them like a censor going postal with his black marker pen. He'd been _redacted_ , for crying out loud. The only thing Crowley couldn't figure out was _why_.

If Gabriel wanted revenge for the Apocalypse debacle, why not keep Aziraphale in chains and taunt him with the prospect of never seeing Crowley again? That kind of sadism had certainly seemed more like Gabriel's style back when he'd been breaking out the hellfire. 

Crowley shuddered at the memory of Gabriel smugly ordering him into the flames. He wondered it breathing hellfire into Gabriel's stupid face had been a tiny smidge too over the top, in retrospect. 

But the point was, Crowley thought, forcing himself to stop dwelling on things he couldn't change, the _point_ was that the Aziraphale who had answered the summons didn't even know _who Crowley was_. That meant that he couldn't _miss_ him either. Aziraphale had been spared the raw, hollow ache of loss; the bruise on Crowley's heart that he knew would never heal until the angel was safe in his arms again. It was an ache as familiar as death or taxes, but so much worse than he'd ever felt before. Put simply, it was grief. The grief of losing his best friend, of losing their future together, and now of losing their precious, irreplaceable _past_ as well. 

Was sparing Aziraphale this by taking his memories supposed to be some twisted idea of _mercy_ ? A way to usher Aziraphale back into the Heavenly Host without any lingering trauma? It certainly _seemed_ like a plausible theory, were it not for the fact that Aziraphale had arrived with his bright blue eyes full of tears. The angel had been totally, utterly miserable. 

Crolwey realized his leg had started jiggling a little while ago without his permission, and that the palms of his hands were marked with red crescents where his fingernails had been digging into them. He let out an irritated hiss. Unless it was asleep, this body tended to move constantly, much to his irritation. Some sort of design flaw in the manufacture, he wondered? It had been this way since the Garden. Of course, most of the time Crowley forced it to be still through sheer force of will, but that didn't mean it was comfortable.

Crowley wasn't to know (or didn't want to admit) that the only thing filling his body with nervous energy was him. Right now, another coping habit was calling to him from the depths of his exhausted mind, one that had left him alone for almost 30 years.

Crowley really, really needed a cigarette.

***

Quietly, privately and in the white confines of his office, Aziraphale was panicking. Pacing about wasn't helping, nor was trying to summon cocoa from the ether. It just never seemed to taste quite right. 

The demon had known about the flaming sword. Nobody should have known about the flaming sword. Aziraphale had kept that secret buried deep in his heart for six thousand years. Even when he was drunk enough to tell every human who would listen how much he loved them (and how much he loved Earth and books and food and wine and, well, _everything,_ really), he was sure he'd never mentioned giving away his sword. 

And, well, it was shameful, wasn't it? It was the symbol of his holy duty and he'd given it away without a second thought. Not that Aziraphale regretted it, exactly. It had looked very dangerous outside the Garden. If he hadn't even told the Almighty about it when she outright asked him, why on Earth would he have told a _demon,_ of all people?

No matter how it had happened, Crowley knew. Did that mean the demon was telling the truth, or was this a trap of some kind? He had said they'd known each other since Eden. Could Crowley had seen him give the sword away, or noticed it's absence afterwards? Everything Aziraphale had heard in the summoning circle could be a lie. 

_I should be sure about this_ , _I should know it's not true_ , Aziraphale thought. _Demons lie, it's what they do. So why do I want to believe him_?

Aziraphale sat down on the edge of his desk. The things Crowley had said about Gabriel didn't bear thinking about, so Aziraphale carefully decided not to think about it. Right now, he was going to go for a nice, relaxing walk and try to remember if he'd ever so much as caught a glimpse of a demon in tight trousers and sunglasses over the last sixty centuries.

Stealthily, Aziraphale eased his office door open and stepped out into the library. He held his breath for a few seconds, waiting to see if Jophiel had noticed him leaving his post. Her door stayed closed. From inside, Aziraphale could hear her softly humming as she condemned Humanity's greatest literature to oblivion. Aziraphale supposed that was probably unfair, some of the more milquetoast prose would make the grade. Nothing that would set anyone's soul aflame, but serviceable stuff. Aziraphale shuddered at the very idea.

He set off as quickly as he dared, making his way between the aisles without really paying attention to where he was. The shelves were foreign and unfriendly, but books were books. Aziraphale had always been happiest when surrounded by the written word, so he picked a book at random and flicked through it.

It was Sumerian cuneiform, ancient beyond belief. Aziraphale remembered the first time he'd come across one of their tablets, these clever folk who had put stylus to clay and made a way to move information about _physically_. He'd been astonished that they'd figured it all out from first principles so quickly. The text was a random selection of benedictions to Sumerian deities, all facets of Her in one form or another. Aziraphale closed it gently and put it back on the shelf.

Idly, he wondered if there were any books that might mention him, specifically. He'd been around a long time, after all. Well, _all_ of time. He'd certainly known more than a few writers. Perhaps, if this Crowley character was telling the truth, there might be mention of him too. 

Aziraphale looked around at the ranked masses of bookcases, sighing deeply. The only problem was time. It could take years, _centuries_ even, to read all of the works that might mention him, even the ones uncontroversial enough to qualify for inclusion in the library. He was back to square one. It was just as Aziraphale was about to head back to his office (to fret and agonize and try to muster up the courage to pay Gabriel a visit), that he heard someone in the next aisle send a whole row of volumes tumbling to the floor. The thud of falling books was accompanied by a muffled "Ow." 

"Are you alright?" Aziraphale called out, hurrying around to the other side of the bookshelves.

"No," came a voice from underneath a big pile of books, "I'm trapped under this big pile of books."

"Oh, good heavens."

Aziraphale pulled a few hefty volumes off the unfortunate angel and helped him to his feet. It was the one from earlier, he realized. Pra-something. Or was it Par-something?

"I'm dreadfully sorry, I seem to have forgotten your name," Aziraphale said, gesturing at his head, "memory like a sieve, I'm afraid."

The angel gave him a strange look, part pity and part suspicion. 

"Pravuil," he said, brushing imaginary dust off his jacket.

"That's right, Pravuil! Angel of…"

The pause dragged out for rather longer than Aziraphale had hoped. Pravuil shifted uncomfortably and looked anywhere except at Aziraphale.

"Records," he said, eventually.

"Records, of course! I'm sure it's fascinating work."

A thought appeared unbidden in the back of Aziraphale's brain. If there were records, even just of good deeds performed, ought there not to be records of his work as an angel?

"Right, I've got what I was looking for," Pravuil said, grabbing the nearest book seemingly at random and shoving it under his arm, "So I'm going back upstairs. Bye."

He turned to leave but didn't get anywhere, because Aziraphale suddenly had a friendly-but-firm grip on his shoulder.

"My dear boy, I'm afraid I have a favour to ask."

"No, you don't, Aziraphale. Go back to work, please. I can't help you."

"You don't even know what I was going to ask you for!"

"I do," Pravuil said, hiding his face with both hands, "I do, and I can't do it. I can't let you see the records, it's not allowed."

Aziraphale let go of Pravuil, who had gone rigid with tension. 

"Why not, Pravuil? I would have thought that they would be freely accessible to anyone. They're a public resource, aren't they?"

"They are," Pravuil admitted, "just not to you. Sorry."

"Oh, I see. That is a shame." Aziraphale said, sadly. 

"Oh no, don't do that," Pravuil replied, "don't look at me like I've just dropped your favourite teapot. It'd be wretched for me if anyone found out I let you see the records, alright?"

"I understand, of course." 

Aziraphale let his face fall into an expression of quiet despair. Pravuil almost immediately looked just as miserable, which meant it was working.

"I'd be in serious trouble, Aziraphale." 

"We can't have that, my dear. I couldn't ask you to put yourself at risk on my account."

As Aziraphale had predicted, Pravuil's resolve quickly began to crumble under the sheer emotional pressure of his sad, pleading stare. Nobody could wield a "kicked-puppy" expression quite like an angel with six thousand years of practice at getting whatever he wanted without getting his hands dirty. Aziraphale almost felt sorry for him.

"I really shouldn't," Pravuil said, picking at l the skin next to one perfect fingernail.

"It's quite alright."

"Nghhh, fine! Just please, please don't tell anyone, OK?"

"My lips are sealed."

Aziraphale placed a guiding hand on Pravuil's back and led him in the direction of the ramp that led all the way to the top of the building. 

"Now, tell me the truth, dear fellow. Why exactly were you down here looking at…" Aziraphale looked at the spine of the book the other angel was carrying and suppressed a laugh, "... Babylonian crop rotation schedules."

Pravuil winced. Aziraphale patted his back encouragingly. 

"I felt bad, alright?" Pravuil said, quietly, "About what happened to you."

Now, that was a surprise. Pravuil might be small and nervous and socially awkward, but he apparently knew more than he was letting on and had a conscience to boot.

"How kind of you, dear. Tell me, have you ever tried cocoa? I think we should make some, have a nice sit down, and then have a lovely chat."

***

The sun was low over Tadfield, sinking behind the trees and casting the garden of Jasmine Cottage in golden light. Crowley was a smudge of sullen shadow at the end of it, scowling at the unkempt herb beds. He was on his third cigarette and still not feeling any calmer. At least it gave him something to do with his hands.

"You call yourself chives?" Crowley snarled half-heartedly, flicking ash over a drooping cluster of green leaves, "A bunch of limp bastards is what you lot are. No pride in yourselves. Not to mention the bloody rosemary," Crowley nudged the offending plant with his foot, "more wood than leaves and spindly as all hell. Who let you think it was OK to just grow however the fuck you want, hmm?"

The herbs ignored him. That was the problem with outdoor plants, he mused. They had a connection to the soil, a support network of other underachievers that boosted their self esteem. It was impossible to instill the kind of proper terror you could get from a potted plant.

If you really wanted to make them afraid, you had to isolate them.

Crowley froze mid-way through kicking an overgrown thicket of mint. Of _course_. 

_That_ was what Gabriel was trying to do. That idiot thought that if you took Crowley out of his memories, Aziraphale would be meek and mild and easy to control. Crowley laughed, sending a perfect halo of smoke out into the evening air.

Heaven really didn't understand Aziraphale at all, and boy, had they underestimated him. So many things made Aziraphale unique - his kindly deviousness, his beautiful untidiness, his graceful, good-natured hedonism - and Crowley was responsible for absolutely none of them. Six thousand years on Earth had given the angel texture and substance and flaws where they were coldly, blandly perfect. Aziraphale might have lost a little of his holy sparkle but he'd gained a _lifetime_ of experience.

Still, it was only half a lifetime without all of his memories. Gabriel had taken years of meetings, of laughter and wine and stupid conversations, of the slow, inevitable fall into a love so deep it was inescapable. He'd taken the only thing that had made Crowley's cursed life worth living. That sort of act deserved a revenge only an immortal with an eternal vendetta could devise. 

Crowley took another drag on his cigarette, watching the end flare a bright, molten orange. Oh yes, he thought, Gabriel was going to _burn_.

"You are really fuckin' weird, Crowley, even for a demon," Hastur said, stepping out from behind a rosebush, "talking to plants and laughing to yourself. You've got a touch of the Earth madness, if you ask me."

Hastur was smoking a cigarette of his own, a black, tarry looking thing that produced clouds of acrid smoke. Crowley refused to be surprised to see him.

"Nobody asked you. What do you want?"

"Just lurking, that's all," Hastur said, avoiding Crowley's scowl, "can't a demon have a good lurk in peace anymore?"

"Apparently not, if my experience is anything to go by." Crowley replied. 

They stood in silence, watching smoke drift up into the evening air.

"How long were you lurking around out here?" Crowley asked.

"Long enough." 

Both of them could feel the ache where someone else should be, Crowley realized. Aziraphale's absence threw everything else in his life into painful relief, like someone with a loudspeaker following him around, reminding him that half of his heart was missing. He supposed, grudgingly, that Hastur must be going through something similar.

"So. The Archangel took his memories, then. That's gotta sting a bit, him looking at you like you was nothing." Hastur said, grinning. 

"Yeah, well. At least mine's still alive," Crowley snapped.

He regretted it instantly. Hastur choked on his cigarette, coughing as though he'd just been kicked in the stomach.

"Sorry. That was a low blow."

Hastur said nothing, which Crowley interpreted as acceptance. Demons didn't usually apologize to one another, so there wasn't much of a protocol to follow. As much as Crowley, deep down in his gut, _hated_ Hastur, that hatred had calmed to a low simmer around time that the white-hot fury of wanting to rip Gabriel's wings off and shove them down his throat had begun to boil over. 

"So, whatcha gonna to do, then?" Hastur croaked, "Get drunk and start crying again?"

Crowley thought about it. That did seem as good a plan as any.

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Bollocks. At least fuckin' _try_ and do something." 

"What?" Crowley blinked at Hastur, who was in the process of stubbing his cigarette out in the centre of the biggest, prettiest rose he could find.

"I _said,_ at least try something, you useless bastard. If you're so pleased he's still alive, you should be makin' mincemeat out of angels until you find the one you want."

"He's in _heaven._ I don't know if you remember, but we were pretty unequivocally _thrown out_."

Hastur shrugged.

"Pfft. Details. Not my department, is it? Ligur always did the details."

Well. Unexpected didn't even begin to cover _that_. A great deal of unexpected things had happened to Crowley over the last few days, but getting a twisted sort of pep talk from Hastur was definitely in the top five. He was toying with seriously asking Hastur if had any ideas when he heard a screech of bicycle brakes from the other side of the low garden wall. He turned toward the sound and found himself face to face with Adam Young. 

"Hi Mr Anthony, I thought that was you. Hang on, are you _smoking_?"

Crowley swore under his breath and dropped the cigarette immediately, grinding it out with the toe of his boot. Hastur let out a wheezing, bubbling laugh, which stopped instantly when Adam looked at him.

"You're another demon, aren't you," Adam said. It didn't sound like a question. Crowley felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise as Adam tapped into his unearthly powers. 

"You're the one who killed Mr. Aziraphale. You shouldn't have done that."

Adam was frowning, pinning Hastur in place with his gaze as surely as if he'd been chained to the spot.

"Hang on, Adam, don't let's do anything hasty," Crowley said, before he could stop himself. Adam looked at _him_ , then, and Crowley really wished he'd kept his mouth shut.

Being looked at by Adam was like being taken apart by a meticulous, indifferent creator who may or may not decide to put you back together again. Every piece was examined, set aside and numbered. Every thought and hope and dream was catalogued. It felt like a free taster portion of oblivion.

And then Adam shut his eyes, and it was over. When he opened them again they were the curious, knowing eyes of a normal eleven-year-old.

"Crowley, you killed his best friend," Adam said, softly. 

Crowley sighed. There wasn't a lot of point in denying it. 

"It was self-defense, but yeah. I did. If I hadn't I think we'd all be dead, save for you."

Adam nodded and turned to Hastur.

"I'm sorry I couldn't bring him back. Y'know, when I reset everything. It's not like what happened to Aziraphale, he's just gone, like he never existed."

Hastur's face crumpled as he began to cry big greasy tears. He seemed almost as surprised about it as Crowley was.

"What d'you do to me? Why do I feel like this?" He shrieked, rubbing at his nose with his filthy sleeve, "What in blessed heaven did you do, you little brat?"

Crowley looked questioningly at Adam, who shrugged. 

"I didn't _do_ anything, really. He had a bit of an emotional blockage, so I cleared it out. S'not healthy bottling it all up like that."

Hastur had fallen to his knees on the grass, weeping uncontrollably. The sounds he was making were more like those of an industrial sewage works than a living being. Crowley tried not to let it make him feel any worse.

"Better put it back, Adam. Demons aren't meant to be in touch with their emotions."

The noises stopped, replaced by harsh, heavy breathing. That was better, even if it was almost as unpleasant on the ears.

"Why's all this happened, Crowley?" Adam said, getting off his bike and leaning it up against the wall. 

"The way I see it, it shouldn't be allowed. People havin' other people killed and then changing their memories so they can't even get mad about it? How's that fair?"

"It's not, I guess. Reality usually isn't."

Adam frowned. 

"It's not right. Someone ought to have a word with the person in charge."

Crowley swallowed. Adam couldn't mean what he seemed to be saying. That would mean…

"I think it's time to pay my grandmother a visit," Adam said, "and not the one who lives in Reading with all the cats. Or the one who lives with Grandpa John."

"You mean…" Crowley raised a finger and pointed nervously at the sky.

"Yeah. Let's go talk to the manager, shall we?"

Adam grinned, and Crowley felt the bright, twin fires hope and fear kindle in his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one, it was so much internal monologue and I really don't enjoy writing that!
> 
> Please enjoy Chekhov's Records Angel, he's the reason this thing exists. He still needs a rest. Will he ever get one? Probably not.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little short chapter, this time, before things begin Happening.

"So, what do I do with it, exactly?"

Pravuil was perched on the edge of his desk, having given up his chair to Aziraphale. The Office of Records was much smaller than Aziraphale had expected, not much more than a cupboard of glass and steelwork at the tip of the library tower. The view was breathtaking, but Aziraphale had to admit he only had eyes for the brilliant white filing cabinet in the corner. That had to be where the records were kept.

"I mean, it's very warm," Pravuil continued, poking at a marshmallow that was floating lazily in his cocoa, "but I don't really understand the point of it, so far."

"You drink it, my dear," Aziraphale said, demonstrating by taking a long, luxurious sip. It wasn't too bad for miracle-work, although not quite up there with Cadbury's drinking chocolate.

Pravuil stared at Aziraphale, eyes wide with fascinated horror. 

"You put it in your mouth? But...but where does it _go_?"

Aziraphale opened his mouth to give the obvious answer and then reconsidered and closed it again. He had no idea if his heavenly body had anything like a digestive system. As far as Aziraphale knew, he might be the only angel who had ever tried eating or drinking. What a shame, he thought, for the others to spend an eternity watching over creation without ever getting to enjoy any of it.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. It goes back to wherever it was before I summoned it, I expect. Just make sure to give yourself taste buds if you haven't already, and then, well." Aziraphale reached over and clinked his mug against Pravuil's, "Bottoms up, as they say on Earth."

The other angel regarded the cocoa suspiciously, but lifted his cup to take a sip anyway. Aziraphale smiled warmly as he saw Pravuil's eyes widen and then flutter closed.

"Oh. Oh, that's so _nice_."

"Isn't it? The marshmallows top the whole thing off beautifully, if I do say so myself."

Pravuil didn't reply. He simply sat, cradling his cocoa as if it was the most precious thing in the entire universe. Aziraphale realised he was crying.

"Now, now, there's no need for that," Aziraphale said, patting his arm comfortingly. "Don't worry, dear, you won't get in trouble, I promise. A little cocoa never hurt anyone." 

Pravuil shook his head and took another sip, heedless of the tears clinging to his lips.

"It's not that, it's not that at all," he said, drawing a deep, steadying breath, "I just didn't _know_ , that's all."

"Didn't know what?"

"What it was like, for them. Down there. How much everything...feels to them. I've watched them from the beginning, Aziraphale. I've read about their lives for _so long_ and I never _knew_."

 _Ah_ , Aziraphale thought, _I probably should have started him off with something simple, like a glass of water_. He had read, once, about a trick you could do if you were feeling particularly sadistic, with frogs and boiling water. If you threw a frog directly into a bubbling pan it would fight and flop and perish in agony. But if you put the frog into cold water instead, and then slowly heated it…well, the frog sat there happily until it expired as if nothing untoward was happening. 

It was much like what had happened to Aziraphale over six millennia of immersion in human culture, he supposed. Back in the early days, there hadn't been much to experience besides heat in the middle of the day, freezing cold at night, and boredom all the rest of the time. And then, wondrously, the humans had started to get _creative_ , and Aziraphale had experienced every new innovation right along with them. He'd tasted the first wine, slept on the first feather mattress, eaten the first tomatoes dried to perfection in the Italian sun. He'd had all the time in the world to adjust. Was it any wonder that an angel who had only ever known the sterile vastness of Heaven would be overwhelmed by the simple taste of cocoa?

"I'm sorry, my dear, I didn't realise," Aziraphale said. He offered a hand to take the mug if Pravuil had had enough, but if the way the little angel clasped it to his chest was any indication, he most certainly hadn't.

"It's fine," he said, with a wobbly smile, "really, it is. I'm glad. I've sort of always wanted to visit them, you know? See what it's like for them, with all that noise and chaos and emotion. And this is as close as I'll ever get. So thanks, for that. For the cocoa."

Aziraphale felt his heart break a little.

"You really care about them?" Aziraphale asked.

Pravuil nodded. 

"I spend all day reading about their good deeds, Aziraphale. All of their prayers, too. They want _so much_ for it to all be OK," he said, dabbing at his eyes with his sleeve, "how could I not _care_?"

"My dear, that's beautiful."

"I don't know about that." Pravuil sniffed and gestured to the filing cabinet, "I never look in the bad deed folders. Not if I want to keep my motivation, anyway."

"Ah, well. It's admirable to want to see the best in people," Aziraphale said, smiling, "even if some of them are _awful_."

Pravuil let out a short, sharp little bark of laughter.

"Speaking of awful people, that reminds me," he said, hopping down from his desk and crossing the tiny space to the filing cabinet, "I promised Gabriel I would destroy all of your records. And then I didn't. Whoops."

Aziraphale stared at the folder Pravuil had pulled out, which was almost as thick as one of Aziraphale's prized medieval bibles. He lifted it gently out of Pravuil's hands, tactfully ignoring the way the little angel's hands were quaking. 

"Are you sure, Pravuil?" Aziraphale said, holding the folder at arms-length, "I really would feel terrible if you got in trouble on my account."

Pravuil shrugged.

"Yeah, I'm sure. Take it. What you've lost, Aziraphale...I can't bear thinking about it. It's not _right_."

Aziraphale let go of a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. He clutched the folder to his chest, cradling the records of his Earthly deeds like a lifeline. There had to be something in there, Aziraphale thought, that would tell him the truth of what had happened.

" _Thank you,_ " he whispered.

"Don't mention it," Pravuil said, glancing around the room as if looking for undercover Archangels, "Ever. To anyone."

Aziraphale nodded. He put the folder down on Pravuil's desk and stroked the cover reverently. Crowley was in here, somewhere, he hoped. Or, if not, at least Aziraphale would know that the demon had lied about knowing him. About _loving_ him.

He lifted a corner of the Manila folder, only to find Pravuil's hand pressing it firmly closed.

"Er. I really, _really_ don't think you should open that _here_."

The other angel's face was bright red, for reasons Aziraphale would later understand when he reached the last, very detailed section of his records. For now, though, he misunderstood completely.

"Ah, yes of course," Aziraphale said, tapping the side of his nose conspiratorially, "Mum's the word. I was never here." 

Pravuil looked Heavenwards (that is to say, toward the tallest crystalline spire visible from his window) as he ushered Aziraphale out of his office, and said a private prayer that Aziraphale would be very far away indeed when he realized exactly how much Pravuil knew about what he and the demon had been getting up to. He suspected he'd still hear the angel's groans of embarrassment, even from the ground floor of the Library.

After Aziraphale had left, Pravuil sat down at his desk, glanced around surreptitiously, and summoned himself a mug of cocoa.

It didn't taste as good as Aziraphale's had, but it was a start. Practice made perfect, after all.

***

Crowley had to admit that without the glowing blanket of light pollution that smothered London, the stars were far more beautiful. Admittedly, the skies above Tadfield were almost suspiciously dark and clear; perfect for children with telescopes and science homework that was due on Monday to explore the universe. From where he was lying on the roof of the Bentley, parked in a lay-by a few miles from the village, Crowley felt as though he could push himself off and just...drown in the dark sea of stars above him. It was almost like being back up there again.

Aziraphale was up there, somewhere. In a dimension that was simultaneously everywhere and nowhere, of course, but still definitely _up_.

Crowley wondered if Adam's plan - which seemed to amount to marching up to the front door of Heaven and knocking, very loudly and insistently, until someone let them in - had any chance of success. The kid was terrifying, that was for certain. Crowley had never met anyone with more self-confidence. It was possible that was just an eleven-year-old thing, but he didn't think so. Crowley had known a lot of children over the course of his long, long life (and had even raised one, who had given him a pair of snake-shaped earrings one Christmas that he still kept next to his bed), and none of them had ever been quite like Adam. It was as if the kid was somehow more _real_ than everything around him, like he was a human actor surrounded by cartoon characters. 

Adam had more dimensions than anyone else. Maybe one of them would let him touch the one Aziraphale was trapped in. If Adam Young knocked on the right door, the Universe would probably invite him in for tea.

It could work. It was certainly better than anything Crowley had come up with.

Crowley shifted so that he could see the bright column of the Milky Way stretching out above him. All of that Universe, and the humans had almost been wiped away before they'd even scratched the surface of it. If Aziraphale were here, he would have said how glorious the view was and asked which ones were Crowley's creations, and taken Crowley's other hand while he pointed out Vega and Deneb and Altair. If Aziraphale were here, Crowley would have kissed him and looked into his eyes, and told him that he liked _this_ view better. 

But the angel wasn't here, so instead Crowley lay on the roof of his car and ached for him. 

Eventually, when the vast splendor of the cosmos had begun to feel very empty without someone to share it with, Crowley carefully climbed down, curled up on the back seat of the Bentley, and went to sleep. He dreamed of stars, and of falling.


	9. Chapter 9

"So kind of you to offer to take Adam to London, Mr. Crowley," Mrs Dierdre Young said, giving him a particular smile that indicated he had no idea what he was getting himself into, "for the whole day, too. And treating him to a trip to a museum, where I'm sure they don't like you touching anything or running around." 

Dierdre tilted her head and looked meaningfully at Adam. 

"Yes, Mum. I'll behave, I promise. It was only an old chair, I don't see why they put chairs on display if you can't even sit on them."

"We're not allowed back to the V&A," Deirdre said. She was trying to keep a straight face and was failing utterly, "Adam decided to see how comfortable King Charles II's chair was."

"Not very," Adam said, "Specially if I had to wait in it to have my head chopped off. I'd want a really comfy chair for that."

"Might help soften the blow a bit," Crowley agreed. 

Dierdre rolled her eyes, smiling, and handed Adam a packed lunch. 

"Just be sure you don't get Mr. Crowley kicked out of the...what was it again?"

"British Museum of Divinity," Crowley said, through gritted teeth. Adam had insisted on the cover story, even though Crowley didn't think it was very funny. "He wants to really nail his R.E. homework, I believe."

"They've got loads about angels and demons," Adam added, looking at Crowley innocently, "I think angels are probably better, but some demons are pretty alright."

"Damned with faint praise," Crowley muttered. 

He ushered Adam, who was waving a little too enthusiastically at his mum, over to the Bentley. 

"Yeah, yeah, tone it down, would you?" Crowley hissed, "You're overselling it."

"Nah, Mum likes a tearful goodbye," Adam replied, leaning out of the Bentley's window and waving even more expansively as Crowley pulled away. He kept to a respectful seventy miles per hour as they roared through the lanes around Tadfield. For Crowley, that was practically thirty.

Adam began rifling through the CDs in the glovebox, pulling each one out and examining them as if they were ancient artifacts. Crowley suspected he wouldn't find anything he liked. 

"Have you got any Queen?" Adam asked, eventually. Crowley laughed. 

"Why don't you try one and see," he said, grinning.

Green lanes turned to leafy A-roads, and then into grey dual carriageways as the beat shook the Bentley's speakers and Adam yelled the words to Bohemian Rhapsody at the top of his lungs. Crowley joined in for the Galileo's, because while he might be a demon he wasn't a monster.

Crowley was almost enjoying the evil tingling sensation of rocketing down the M25 when a rasping voice from the back seat told them to turn that bloody racket off.

" _Bugger off_ , Hastur," Crowley groaned, scowling at the demon in his rear-view mirror. He was sitting sideways, disgusting boots up on the seat. Crowley hissed at him, low and threatening.

"Feet off the leather, or so help me I'll crash this car with all of us inside."

"Bollocks. You're up to something, you and," Hastur swallowed nervously and waved a filthy hand in Adam's direction, "the Kid. Going to throw yourself at Her feet and beg for your angel back like the worm you are?"

"Might do. Would _absolutely_ beg if I thought it'd work. What's it to you, anyway?"

"He's a snake, not a worm," Adam added helpfully, twisting around in his seat. "Worms're properly blind. Crowley's just wearing sunglasses."

"Yes, _thank you_ , Adam." Crowley said. "Now get the blessed Heaven out of my car."

Hastur sniffed sulkily, but slowly lowered his boots into the footwell. 

"I'm coming as well. Wherever you're going."

"Uh uh. No way. Like Hell you are." 

"Just try and stop me, Crowley," Hastur said, grinning as he leaned forward. Crowley shuddered as he caught the grave-dirt and brimstone scent of him. It was going to take forever to get the smell out of the Bentley. Demonic miracles wouldn't cut it this time; he was going to have to call his valet service, and they always got a bit snippy when you turned up with a car smelling of decomposing corpse. He'd be lucky to get a second coat of wax, let alone a little air freshener that smelled of Chanel No.5. 

If Hastur could have read Crowley's mind, he would probably have been extremely disappointed at how little Crowley's pained expression had to do with his attempts to be menacing.

"I want to watch when She kicks your arse back downstairs. I bet it hurts _twice_ as much the second time around."

Crowley wondered if slamming the brakes on at a hundred miles an hour would send Hastur through the windscreen without injuring Adam. If it worked, Crowley might even get to run him over for good measure. 

If it didn't, the whiplash would completely liquify Adam's brain. On balance, he thought, probably not worth it.

"You want to see if you can get him back too, don't you?" Adam said. His voice had the bright, ancient innocence of childhood in it, the kind that could cut deep into your soul. Hastur snarled wordlessly in response, his black eyes wide and staring. 

"You do, it's okay. I don't know if She can bring him back, but you can come if you like."

"What? No he can't!" Crowley said, swerving across four lanes to exit the motorway. 

"Yes he can. He needs to, I think." 

"Adam, you have got to be kidding me! He's a bloody Duke of Hell for Christ's sake, not a lost puppy that followed you home. He's _dangerous._ "

Adam turned and looked at Crowley. Not through him this time, not into his soul but into his eyes instead as if his sunglasses didn't exist. 

"He's a demon who's lost his best friend. Don't you think we should help?"

Crowley grimaced, gripping the steering wheel painfully tight. Adam had him backed into a corner and he knew it.

"Nggh, Alright!"

Grinning, Hastur put his feet up on the seat again and produced one of his foul cigarettes from somewhere in the recesses of his coat. Before he could light it, Crowley snatched it and threw it out of the driver's-side window, which had wound itself down out of some sort of terrified machine instinct. 

" _Feet down_ , _no sssmoking, or we'll ssee how far you fly when I hit the brakess,"_ Crowley hissed. 

"Better do as he says," Adam said, cheerfully, "You look pretty aerodynamic for a demon."

Hastur kept his boots on the floor and his cigarettes stowed in his coat until they reached their destination. 

***

The trip back down to Aziraphale's office had been mercilessly uneventful. A few angels had passed him by, but none seemed the least bit interested. Several had been reading and hoverboarding at the same time, which Aziraphale secretly believed to be deeply disrespectful to the concept of literature. He wasn't entirely sure why, since the whole place seemed to have been designed for smooth gliding between the levels. Angels certainly didn't need to watch where they were going, especially not in Heaven where you couldn't trip over even if you wanted to. Nonetheless, he thought, as an angel sped by him - nose buried in a 13th century illuminated manuscript - somehow it wasn't _right_.

By the time he reached his office, he half expected Jophiel to be waiting for him. He'd been gone too long, and although Aziraphale had gotten used to regular breaks for cocoa and lunch and dinner and wine, in Heaven there was no such thing as a tea break. Angels didn't get tired and they weren't supposed to feel boredom, either. Aziraphale suspected that particular human affliction was contagious, however, because if he had to spend the rest of his eternal existence in this place he'd go stark raving insane from tedium. He'd been in Heaven for less than a week and it already felt like a lifetime. 

Blessedly, Jophiel was still busy in her office. Aziraphale silently thanked the Almighty for the relentless single-mindedness that kept all the other angels so absorbed in their work. A small, rebellious part of him was thankful that he didn't seem to have it at all. He slipped quietly into his office and closed the door.

And then all that was left to do was to actually _look_ at his records. Aziraphale placed the folder reverently on the desk, sat down, and stared at it for a bit. Then he picked at an imaginary jagged fingernail, straightened his bowtie and fiddled with the buttons on his waistcoat. He sighed.

The problem was...the _problem_ was there was a significant possibility that his entire life had been a lie. Pravuil had said he'd lost something, and Aziraphale knew deep in the core of his being that it was true. Something was missing. Even before he'd been rudely summoned down to Earth, Aziraphale had felt the loss like a phantom limb. He'd thought he'd just missed his bookshop and his high-teas in Covent Garden and the quilted satin slippers he'd had since 1928. He'd thought he'd felt the hollow absence of the brilliant creatures who made Earth unique. 

Now Aziraphale was starting to worry that he was missing something much, much more important. If Crowley had told him the truth then Aziraphale had lost the most important person in his life, in every way possible. The demon had looked at him with eyes filled with hope and love and pain. Aziraphale wondered what he would do when he truly understood why.

There was, he supposed, only one way to find out.

Aziraphale opened the folder with a shaking hand and began to read.

***

"Is the entrance to Heaven inside that bookshop?" Adam asked, frowning. 

"You could say that," Crowley replied, "But probably only for me. It's Aziraphale's place. I'm just going to pop in and check on it before we, y'know." Crowley pointed awkwardly at the sky. None of this felt real, if he was being honest. The same could be said for the last few months of his life in general, for a variety of both good and bad reasons. At this point, parked in a Soho sidestreet with a semi-retired Antichrist and a rogue Duke of Hell in his car, Crowley had reached a sort of zen state of simultaneous disbelief and surrender. As far as he was concerned, his life certainly couldn't get any weirder.

He got out and leaned against the passenger side of the car.

"Adam, you're in charge. Don't let him smoke in the car. I promise, if he does, it'll be _extremely_ bad for his health."

Hastur extended a middle finger, which made Adam snort with laughter. Something told Crowley Adam wouldn't be much of a disciplinarian.

"Fine, thanks a lot. I'll just go then, shall I?" Crowley said, wandering away in the general direction of the bookshop. "Just go and set a few infernal wards to trap any bastard angels who come sniffing around the blasphemous bibles, then go to bloody _Heaven_ and talk to _God_ . Just a totally normal day in the life of Anthony J. Crowley; allegedly a demon, definitely totally _fucked_."

The door to the bookshop was still locked, but Aziraphale had given him a key shortly after the apocalypse failed to occur. The angel had claimed that repeatedly miracling it open whenever Crowley fancied treating the "Closed" sign as optional was bad for the lock. Quite correctly, Crowley thought this was complete nonsense. Aziraphale had been wittering on about locksmith's bills and metal fatigue as he'd pressed the key into Crowley's hand, but Crowley could tell from the blush creeping up his neck that what he was really saying was _stay here with me, for as long as you like_. Luckily, Crowley had recently discovered that kissing Aziraphale until he couldn't remember how to put one word in front of another was a very effective way to shut him up.

It had all been very romantic, as far as Crowley was concerned. Or, what they mutually seemed to think of as romantic; which had less to do with dinners and flowers and chocolates and more to do with being obliquely honest about just how much they meant to one another. Aziraphale had given him the key to his sanctum, the place where he kept his most treasured possessions. The angel hadn't simply hoarded all his little knick-knacks and mementoes, he'd built a _nest_ out of them; filling the bookshop with love and literature and hundreds of little objects that reminded him of the best times in his life. It was almost sickeningly sweet. As well as objects, the whole business with Madame Tracy seemed to have given him ideas about possessing _people_ too (although rather less literally), and Crowley had let himself be utterly, gloriously possessed. 

The little squiggly bit of metal resting in Crowley's palm was more than a key to a Soho bookshop, it was the key to his angel's heart.

Crowley unlocked the door and made his way inside. He looked around cautiously, searching for any sign of angelic interference, but there was nothing. Nothing but an empty bookshop, a fine layer of dust that Aziraphale normally miracled away, and a slim volume of poetry lying open on the angel's desk. Crowley squinted at it in the gloom. Keats, he saw; of course it was bloody Keats. Aziraphale had a soft spot there, alright. Crowley wasn't sure he trusted the insights of a young man who'd died of consumption at twenty-five, but the angel saw something fragile and beautiful in his work. 

" _Bright star! Would I were steadfast as thou art_." Crowley read softly under his breath, "Oh, Aziraphale. You sweet, soppy old bastard." 

Crowley squashed the sudden upwelling of bittersweet love in his chest and looked away. He closed the book and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Crowley stalked the perimeter of the bookshop, past the overloaded shelves and the tattered backroom sofa and the dingy, windowless little stockroom.

Everything was completely untouched. Heaven's plan for Aziraphale's home seemed to be to let it fall derelict. Eventually, someone would notice that the lights had been off for weeks and rob the place of all its treasures. What happened afterwards hardly mattered. Without its contents and its angel, the bookshop was just a building.

"Well, time to make sure anyone who comes looking for trouble finds more than they can shake an incredibly pointy stick at." Crowley said, flexing his fingers and summoning a little touch of demonic flame. 

It wasn't hellfire, not the really strong stuff, but it was hot enough to burn some nasty-looking sigils into the wood over the doorway and around the windows. 

As a flourish Crowley signed the wards with his sigil and Aziraphale's, side by side, so that anyone that dared desecrate the bookshop would know exactly who they'd been messing with. Not that they'd be alive long enough to do anything with that information.

Pausing at the doorway, Crowley looked back at the quiet, cozy room. He had thousands of memories of this place, so many that they all blended together. A hundred nights spent happily getting smashed with Aziraphale, a dozen spent lazily sprawled together on the sofa with hands and legs and lips entwined. One particular delicious night where Crowley had pinned Aziraphale to his desk chair and made him gasp out Crowley's name like a benediction.

He would make it back from Heaven with Aziraphale, or he wouldn't come back at all. 

"Be back soon, I hope." he said, to no-one, and let the door swing shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Keats poem, Bright Star, is about wishing you had eternity to spend with your lover, immortal and unchanging. Aziraphale was going to read it to his own Bright Star next time he wanted to charm the pants off him.


	10. Chapter 10

Unsurprisingly, six thousand years of miracles had generated an unholy amount of records. Aziraphale summoned a cup of sub-par tea and got stuck in, carefully comparing each miracle against his memories. The early ones were a bit of a blur if he was honest, a lot of discreetly making his little hut warm and waterproof. Those days had been hard and the nights had been even worse.

Aziraphale flipped through a few millennia-worth of home comforts and improved alcohol; past the dark times of Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood and the crucifixion. Some of his older miracles had been exactly what he was put on Earth to do: administering the occasional spark of divine inspiration that would save a soul from darkness, making difficult lives a little easier. Aziraphale was mildly distressed, however, to realise that he'd used most of them on himself. 

"Oh dear," he muttered to himself, "I probably should have tried to be a little more resilient."

He flipped forward to somewhere in the twelfth century, scanning absently through blessings and divine ecstasies, and stopped when he saw something that made his eyes widen. 

"Good Lord, is that a temptation? Why on Earth would I have been performing a _temptation_?"

He'd tempted a monk away from a life of prayer and silent contemplation. The man had become a brewer, bought an inn, and died old and fat and happy with his wife at his bedside. Aziraphale knew he should feel guilty. He should be horrified. He wasn't sure what it meant that he was smiling instead.

Could it be Crowley's influence? An infernal plot to corrupt an angel, perhaps?

It didn't seem likely. After all, there were still eight hundred years of miracles left to look through. If the demon had been trying to make him fall he'd done a spectacularly bad job of it.

Aziraphale read more carefully from that point on, making a mental note any time another temptation cropped up. They seemed to happen with increasing frequency as the years went by. All of them were, of course, unconscionable blasphemies that any angel worth his salt shouldn't have been caught dead anywhere near. Aziraphale, on the other hand, had always thought there was such a thing as too much salt (particularly when it came to soup), and was rather glad he hadn't been caught at all. Evidently, even with a written record all his little indiscretions had been too minor for Heaven to concern itself with. Several of the more suspicious temptations _did_ have little golden question marks next to them, however, presumably Pravuil's handiwork. The balance of miracle to temptation was still overwhelmingly in Heaven's favour, though, so Aziraphale told himself that was all probably just fine. 

It had to be, didn't it? Otherwise he would have been recalled (or worse) centuries ago. So, his copybook was a little grubbier than he remembered. Nothing he couldn't handle. Admittedly, there was evidence of fraternising with the enemy and if he looked really closely and squinted a bit, having dinner and drinks with the enemy, but there was bound to be a reasonable explanation for that. 

Aziraphale turned the page and froze when he saw the word "demon" underlined in gold ink. 

"Deflection of falling masonry from the corporations of the Principality Aziraphale and the _Demon Crowley_. Oh!"

Aziraphale covered his hand with his mouth when he realized quite how loud his squeak of surprise had been. Jophiel was bound to have heard. He waited, holding his breath, to see whether she was the kind of hands-on manager who would check on strange noises coming from their employee's office. After a few seconds he heard the door to her office open and hastily shoved the folder into his stack of books that were waiting to be processed. It stuck out like a sore thumb, but his horribly minimalist office didn't leave him with much of a choice.

"Hello, Aziraphale? Is everything alright in there?" Jophiel said, from the other side of the door.

"Yes, yes, absolutely fine! I just, er, dropped a book on my toe, that's all! One of the really thick ones, more's the pity."

"I see. Well, I'm glad it's not serious. I haven't received anything from you in some time so I was starting to grow concerned."

Jophiel didn't sound particularly concerned. What she sounded was annoyed. Hurriedly, Aziraphale selected a few random books from his stack and dumped them into his out-tray, where they promptly disappeared. That would hold her for a bit, he hoped.

"Oh dear, I believe I temporarily forgot how the out-tray worked! I've just sent some through now, should be some excellent candidates waiting on your desk as we speak."

"Thank you. Please try not to drop any more of the books."

From the other side of the door, Aziraphale heard footsteps walking away and the sound of Jophiel going back into her office. Aziraphale breathed again, letting his heart rate settle until he remembered he no longer had a heart. His corporeal form was gone for good, after six thousand years of careful ownership. Yet another thing he'd lost. He sighed deeply and slowly extracted the folder from the middle of the tower of books. 

His bookshop was gone, his memories were gone. Somehow, he knew in his heart that his companion of six millennia was gone. 

What else had been taken? Aziraphale started reading again, searching desperately for any mention of Crowley. He was everywhere; in some places it was obvious enough for Pravuil to catch wind of something, in most, only Aziraphale would be able to tell. As the years rolled by, tables for two became miraculously open, tickets to the theatre appeared from nowhere, vast quantities of wine improved itself to meet the needs of immortal palates. Traces of a life they had lived together, in whatever capacity two hereditary enemies been able to. Friends, at the very least. Aziraphale leaned back in his chair and searched his memories.

He remembered nights reading alone, dining alone, drinking alone. Always alone.

Oh, but this was so unfair! What could he possibly have done to deserve having his life taken from him? Deep down, Aziraphale knew he'd always been a little more morally flexible than his fellow angels, but he couldn't imagine what he could have done to drive Gabriel to this. 

With the evidence laid bare in front of him, Aziraphale had no choice but to face what Crowley had told him. Crowley had been telling the truth about everything. Even if he couldn't face it at the time, Aziraphale had known it as soon as he had looked into the demon's golden eyes. He knew it like he knew that men's fashion had peaked in the mid 19th Century, that wine had never been the same after the Great Blight, and that his bookshop had the finest collection of ecclesiastical literature in the western world. He knew, and it hurt.

Aziraphale flicked a thumb against the remaining pages. There were a lot more than there should have been, given that there were less than fifteen years of miracles left. Evidently, they had been busy years. For the life of him, Aziraphale realized he couldn't remember any of it; thinking about it hurt his head. He scanned the list of strange miracles, which mostly seemed to involve reviving dying shrubbery, frowning intently.

None of it made a lick of sense; from reviving a dove, to fixing a bicycle and then un-fixing it a bit, to opening a communication with the Metatron...wait. 

Aziraphale froze, his finger halfway down the page. The Metatron? What possible business could he have had with the Metatron? And then, and then…everything was redacted with bright gold bars, not Pravuil this time or even Gabriel. Someone much higher had removed this information, and Aziraphale could only think of one being with that authority.

"Well, this is either very good or _very_ _bad_ indeed," he mused, looking upward almost without thinking, "Although I should probably be glad nobody can go snooping. Amen to that, I suppose."

The file didn't finish there, much to Aziraphale's surprise. After the blocked out parts came more pages of miracles, this time with little waterfalls of golden notations in the margins on both sides. 

"Ah, lovely," he smiled, "more dinners!"

Despite himself, Aziraphale felt a little rush of excitement. Crowley's shadow was there if you knew where to look; he was the other glass of wine that miraculously found itself of an extremely good vintage, the production of an umbrella big enough to shelter two immortal beings, the sneaky little miracle to keep a basket of picnic food chilled to perfection. 

It was all, well. If he didn't know any better, Aziraphale would have called it _romantic_. 

As he read the start of the next paragraph, Aziraphale gasped so violently he almost tipped backwards out of his chair.

"Oh, good lord," he whispered, "Banishment of clothing...and _underwear_." 

And there, as plain as day, was a notation that indicated that He, the Principality Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern Gate, had _made an effort_. If the next few miracles were anything to go by, it had been an enthusiastic, prolonged and repeated effort.

Aziraphale's face flushed bright red as he slammed the folder closed with a thud.

"Oh Heavens, oh _Crowley._ " He said, softly. 

After a few seconds, he furtively reopened the folder and read the rest of it. Then he read it again. He would have read it a third time, unaware of the smile creeping across his face, had somebody not started banging on his office door. 

It was loud and purposeful, so it couldn't be Jophiel. Given Aziraphale's recent run of atrocious luck, there was only one person it could be.

Aziraphale felt all the newfound colour drain from his face. Somehow he managed to gather the folder and hide it in the only place he could think of in his minimalist nightmare of an office: he put it on his chair and then sat on it.

"I'm coming in, Aziraphale. We need to talk," Gabriel yelled.

Very quietly, as the door began to swing open, an angel (let us call him Aziraphale, Ravisher of Demons, Lover of Infinite Generosity, Enthusiastic if Unskilled Kisser, Principality and Somewhat Irresponsible Angel of the Eastern Gate) said:

"Oh, _fuck_."

***

"So is the frog, like, your pet? Do you have to feed it worms and stuff? Does it ever need a wee?"

"No," Hastur said, "to all three. An' it's a toad not a frog, so jot that down. Full house."

Crowley wasn't sure whether or not to be relieved that Adam and Hastur had gotten out of the Bentley and were now playing poker on the hood. Or at least, Adam was playing poker. Hastur seemed to be only tangentially familiar with the rules but was still trying to cheat.

"That's not a full house, that's five aces in two different colours, you're not even trying! And anyway, I've got two more aces so that hand's just bollocks."

"Playtime's over, children," Crowley said, sauntering over as nonchalantly as possible. Being in the bookshop without Aziraphale had brought back unpleasant memories and he needed to shake them off. 

Hastur laughed and gathered the cards up, stuffing them into a pocket of his trenchcoat. 

"I like this one better than the other kid," he said, "This one owes me money."

"At least Warlock was smart enough to tell you to piss off," Crowley snapped. Having Hastur around was fraying his last, abused nerve to breaking point.

"Jokes on you, I haven't got any money," Adam piped up, sticking his tongue out at Hastur, "Who's Warlock?"

"Ugh," Crowley sighed, and got into the Bentley. "Don't want to talk about it. Come on, we've got a long way to go."

Adam and Hastur followed, and Crowley screeched away from the bookshop in a cloud of tire-smoke. Hastur was apparently so eager to answer Adam's question that he forgot to put his feet up on the seat again.

"Our _golden boy_ over here was told to drop off the Antichrist with a nice American family who would've royally messed 'im up, got 'im nice and ready to bring down the hellfire when the time came. 'Course, he totally _fucked_ it up. They got a normal kid instead, and you ended up with the most boring humans on the entire planet."

"It was the nuns that did the fucking, thank you very much," Crowley snapped.

That didn't sound right, but Crowley supposed they had been Satanic nuns. Adam let out a snort of laughter.

"I was s'posed to be _American_? And called _Warlock_?"

"Not exactly, the family lived near London. Poor kid ended up with a very weird childhood, but no harm done overall. I think." 

Crowley thought about Warlock Dowling for a second or two, and then put him out of his mind guiltily.

"Anyway, you turned out better than you would've with an angel and a demon hanging around all the time. Thank Someone for our utter incompetence on that part."

"You can thank me, if you like," Hastur said, grinning evilly from the back seat, "I've been rooting for you to bollocks everything up from day one."

"So you just, what? Spied on a normal kid for eleven years?" Adam asked. 

Crowley wasn't sure why Adam was bothering to ask about anything in his past; Adam had looked into his soul the day before and seen absolutely everything. There was a chance it was too much for an almost-human mind to sort through, what with there being six thousand years of memories. There was a slim chance that Adam was simply being polite. Crowley suspected, deep down in his cynical soul, that Adam was enjoying this too much.

"It was a wee bit more hands-on than that," Crowley admitted.

"Crowley gave lots of boring presentations, but funny enough none of 'em mentioned the part about dressing up as a Nanny and playing house with the angel." 

Hastur looked as though all his Christmases had come at once, and Adam wasn't far behind him. Crowley slammed the accelerator to the floor and took a few corners much faster than was strictly necessary in the hope it would distract them. It didn't.

"You were a _nanny_? A _demon nanny_?" 

"I was a bloody _excellent_ nanny, if you must know. And I looked _sinful_ in a pencil skirt. Could've done without the stockings, what's the point in half-assing these things?"

Before either of them could respond, Crowley slammed on the brakes and pulled up onto the curb outside a sleek, modern skyscraper. 

"Everyone out," he said, grimly. "We're here."

Adam frowned at Crowley curiously.

"I thought you said we had a long way to go? That was, like, five minutes, max."

"Oh, we still do. Metaphorically speaking." 

The building was nothing more than a shell, really, a projection of something strange and otherworldly onto the mundane reality of Earth. As Crowley looked up at it, though, he couldn't help thinking that it had most of the same problems as the genuine corporate office buildings crowding around it. Crab mentality didn't even begin to cover it; the Company was such a toxic work environment that the employees would destroy anyone who dared to try and retire. 

It was time to go back in, and he would never, ever be ready. 

Crowley got out of the Bentley, ran a hand through his hair, and tried not to have a panic attack. 

"It'll be alright," Adam said, touching Crowley gently on the arm. 

"No, it won't," Crowley replied, weakly, "but we're going to do it anyway."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale isn't quite sure what to do with his tongue yet while kissing, but Crowley is a very patient teacher.


	11. Chapter 11

Crowley itched all over. The lobby of the Building was as clean and shiny as it had always been, but standing in it felt like being submerged in oil. It was suffocating. He felt dirty.

"Okay, so, don't be mad." Adam said, which was close to the top of the list of things Crowley really didn't want to hear, "I reckon I can get us in. Definitely. Probably. But I think once we're up there I won't be able to do much, y'know," Adam wiggled his fingers demonstrably, "powers wise."

"Right," Crowley said, flatly. 

"The Antichrist thing is Earth-only, I think. Not totally sure, on account of never having been to any other planets or anything," Adam's face suddenly brightened significantly, "D'you reckon I'd still be able to change stuff on Mars?"

"Brilliant. Just fantastic," Crowley sighed.

He clenched his jaw shut to stop himself from saying something he'd regret. 

"So this realisation about your powers came when, exactly?" He said carefully.

"When we came in here. I just sort of knew."

Adam shrugged sheepishly and scuffed one trainer across the lobby floor. It wasn't his fault, Crowley knew that. Adam was volunteering to take them into enemy territory to rescue someone he'd only really met once. Crowley hadn't known many eleven-year-olds in his time on Earth, but he'd have comfortably bet his Bentley that most of them wouldn't risk their lives to save a relative stranger. So, it would be an understatement to say that Crowley was grateful for Adam's help. The problem was that without a former Antichrist's powers, they'd be more exposed in Heaven than a streaker at a football match, and a hell of a lot less welcome.

"Well isn't that the perfect garnish on this whole shit sandwich," Hastur growled, "because all it'll take is one stray drop of holy water and I'll be fucking toast. Crowley knows _all_ about that, don't you?"

He scowled meaningfully at Crowley, who suddenly became very interested in studying his own shoes. Or, at least, what most people assumed were shoes. They were a rather fetching snakeskin, at any rate. Crowley generally looked however he wanted to look, to the extent that he himself didn't always think too hard about the details. What other people saw was what mattered, whether it was real or not. That was, after all, how he'd dealt with his last, eventful trip to Heaven.

"It's a pity we can't just disguise ourselves," he said, looking at his reflection in a polished bit of ornamental steel. "Aziraphale used to say that most of the heavenly host were so up their own arses, they wouldn't know each other from Adam. The first one, obviously. Not you."

Aziraphale had been even more animated than usual that evening, a few hundred years ago, when he'd been stopped repeatedly by Gabriel's staff on the way to his annual meeting. He could almost hear him, slurring slightly from copious amounts of wine as he tried to whisper to Crowley, as if that meant Heaven wouldn't notice. 

_They kept asking if I had an appointment, can you believe? Honestly, you step out for a few thousand years and it's like everybody forgets you exist!_

Crowley had nodded along happily. Watching Aziraphale talk was always a pleasure, doubly so when he was grousing about whatever was currently annoying him. He'd never been sure if Aziraphale knew just how unangelic it was to complain at length about every minor inconvenience in his life, or if he simply didn't care. Either way, it was one of the things that made him so deliciously different. Aziraphale was unique; compared to him the other angels were all just so much beige. 

That uniformity might just be their saving grace, Crowley realized. If they could blend in, hide in plain sight, there was a slim chance that they they could survive.

"Adam, I don't know if you know this, but you're pretty much invisible, occult-wise." Crowley said, thoughtfully, "Angels and demons can't sense you. We couldn't sense you, even when we dropped Anathema off just up the road. Couldn't sense the hellhound, either, come to think of it."

"That's cool," Adam said, half-heartedly "Sort of like a rubbish superpower. I'll remember that if we ever do end up going paintballing." 

Crowley stalked over to Adam and sniffed. Usually, he could catch a whiff of earthy sin or airy divinity on everyone. Aziraphale smelled like honey and dust and sunshine, his own particular blend of morality. Adam didn't smell of anything. In fact, standing next to him made Crowley feel like he had a head-cold. He couldn't even smell Hastur, which was honestly a relief. 

"Did your little revelation about your powers have anything to say about your natural defenses? The inbuilt stuff you don't have any control over?" Crowley asked.

"Considering you spent my whole life thinking some kid called Warlock was actually me and didn't spot me from less than a mile away, I'd say they're probably just part of what I am? The other stuff's different. I only started to be able to do all that, y'know, recently."

Crowley clapped his hands together. A plan was forming in his brain, solid enough to hang his hopes on. Maybe even stupid enough to actually work.

"Okay, now we're getting somewhere. If Hastur and I stick near you, we might just be able to pull this off. We'll need disguises. Or, at least, we'll need to look a bit more angelic. Can't stand out too much."

Crowley considered his reflection in the stainless steel wall of the foyer and then snapped his fingers. His blazer changed from black to white, with a pale, dove-grey t-shirt underneath. His jeans became soft, stonewashed grey, and his shoes turned to white snakeskin. As a finishing touch, his mesh tie brightened to shining silver, and Crowley examined himself again. It was a _look_ , to be sure, falling somewhere between angelic and casually sexy, which was about as much ground as Crowley would ever be willing to concede. He lengthened his hair into a chin-length mass of soft curls, which softened things considerably.

"Angels don't wear sunglasses, you great poncy berk." Hastur supplied, rolling his eyes. 

That. That was a point. Crowley couldn't very well wander around without them, though, the eyes were designed to be a bit of a dead giveaway.

"Well, what do you suggest, if you're so bloody smart?" He said, turning on his heel and glaring at Hastur, "I wear a blindfold and have you two lead me around? Pretend I'm the angel of justice or something?"

"Angel of fashion sense, more like," Hastur chuckled.

"I can help, maybe? Change the colour and make 'em look like human eyes?" Adam said, "Can you bend down a bit so I can see? You're too tall."

Crowley recoiled, taking a few involuntary steps toward the nearest wall.

"Erm. Thanks and everything, for the offer, very kind, but really, really _no thanksss,"_ he stammered _._

The last time Crowley had looked in a reflective surface and seen unfamiliar eyes looking back at him, sulfur-yellow and slitted, it hadn't been a happy memory. In fact, it had held the top spot in Crowley's list of worst memories for six thousand years, right up until Aziraphale's bookshop had gone up in flames and kicked it down into second place. Watching Aziraphale fall lifeless to the floor had recently swept all the "worst memory" awards, and Crowley really hoped nothing was waiting in the wings to challenge it.

Still, letting Adam modify his eyes would definitely be the sensible thing to do. It would help him get Aziraphale back. It was probably the _right_ thing to do, even. So why couldn't he?

"Okay, Crowley, it's okay," Adam was saying, somewhere far away. 

He had to save Aziraphale, had to get him back before the cold austerity of heaven crushed the precious, beautiful love right out of him. Saving Aziraphale was all that mattered, and he, Crowley was too busy having a freakout over his personal appearance.

As if he was in a dream, his vision shifted blue-ish. Everything looked colder and brighter, somehow. Crowley frowned and glanced at his reflection.

"I changed the glasses instead, is that alright?" Adam asked, softly.

His sunglasses were now silver, wire-rimmed circles with lenses of pale azure blue. It was eerily similar to the colour of Aziraphale's eyes, a translucent and ethereal blue that Crowley had always secretly admired. There was some sort of reflective coating on them, a slight rainbow sheen that made it almost impossible to tell what colour his irises were or where his oddly-shaped pupils began. They clashed horribly with the red of his hair, but they looked like an affectation rather than a defence mechanism; something an angel might conceivably wear for the aesthetic. Crowley could definitely work with that.

"Yeah." He choked out, "S'fine. Thanks."

Adam nodded. 

"Right, good. Now we gotta sort Hastur out. Don't think he's gonna pass for an angel without some serious work."

"Oh no," Hastur snapped, one grubby finger levelled accusingly at Adam and Crowley, "you bastards leave me alone. I'm fine as I am thank you very much. No bloody way are you dressing me up like one of those posh nitwits."

"And here I was thinking you wanted Ligur back," Crowley said, looking at him over the top of his new glasses, "because the only being in the universe who can bring him back is at the top of that escalator, and She has a very strict dress code."

Hastur shifted uncomfortably. 

"Well, yeah, obviously. Wouldn't be hanging round with you to otherwise, would I? Just need to clean my coat a bit. Got a few thousand years of dirt, that's all."

"You look like you just crawled out of your own grave six months post mortem," Crowley said, smiling wickedly, "and you smell like it too."

"Yeah, that's not gonna work. Sorry, Hastur."

Adam snapped his fingers and Crowley immediately burst out laughing.

Hastur was wearing a white tuxedo, complete with a pink rose in his buttonhole, tails and a top hat. He had gold shoes, slicked-back hair, and an expression of blinding, incoherent rage. A growl bubbled up from his throat, low and furious.

"Oh, I needed that," Crowley gasped, "I really did. I think you overshot, Adam. Too formal."

Adam made a face.

"Eugh, yeah. Let me try again."

He snapped. This time Hastur had on something akin to his old outfit, only cleaner and newer; fawn trench coat, pale green sweater, clean white shirt and light gray slacks. The fingerless gloves had been consigned to the void, leaving an overall impression of a gamekeeper dressed for a job interview. His eyes were a little weird-looking and the hair was still a disaster, but at least it had been combed. Crowley supposed that was as good as it got.

"Do something about the face, would you?" He said, "You look like you've got a mouthful of wasps. Not terribly angelic." 

Hastur gave Crowley his fakest smile. Even with six thousand years of casual enmity burning behind it, it was still more genuine than Gabriel's.

"Good enough. What about you, Adam?"

"I'll be fine as I am, I think," Adam said, looking down at his fraying jeans and scruffy trainers, "I'm family, sort of. It feels like I'm invited, just this once, otherwise we couldn't get in."

That was it then, Crowley supposed. Time to face the music. Of course, this being Heaven, the music would be bloody awful. Probably Elgar. Crowley shuddered.

"C'mon, let's go get them."

Adam took Crowley's hand and led him to the escalator, which seemed to extend until it reached a vanishing point somewhere in the distance. 

Crowley and Adam stepped on together, their hands still clasped tightly, rising smoothly even as Crowley's stomach dropped down into his shoes. He wasn't ready. He'd never be ready.

But then, he supposed, nobody was ever really ready when it came time to go to Heaven.

Back at ground level, Hastur noticed everyone had boarded the escalator without him and ran to catch up, swearing with every step. 

***

If the Bible was anything to go by, Archangels loved a dramatic entrance. Usually there were trumpets and heavenly choirs. This time, Gabriel made his entrance by slamming Aziraphale's door open with such force that his mug fell off his desk and shattered. 

"Really, Aziraphale?" Gabriel said, obviously furious.

"I'm sorry!" Aziraphale said, on instinct. He wasn't sure what he was sorry for, just yet, but he'd found that a preemptive apology never hurt when dealing with Gabriel. There was quite a long list of things he might need to apologize for. He was currently sitting on it.

"Yeah, I would certainly hope so! Jophiel was so shaken up she's lodged a formal complaint! Just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

"I'm sorry?" Aziraphale repeated, "What, um, for, exactly?"

"This, you moron!" 

Gabriel slammed a book down onto the desktop, wobbling the tower of waiting volumes. Aziraphale looked at the front cover and felt his heart sink. 

"Oh dear."

" _Lady Chatterley's Lover,_ Aziraphale? This was banned for obscenity in _six countries_. That's all you have to say?" Gabriel said, furiously, " _Oh dear?_ "

Gabriel's Aziraphale impression wasn't flattering in the least; a mocking falsetto that Aziraphale had heard a hundred times from a particular kind of bigoted human. It was tiring, to say the least, and had he not been talking to the Archangel Gabriel he would have delivered a stern lesson on the folly of toxic masculinity. As it was, he didn't think it would go down too well.

"Well," he said, clearing his throat, "In my defense, I really don't know why it was a candidate for the Library in the first place. Surely someone should have rejected it before it got to this point?"

"What a great idea! Why didn't I think of that?" Gabriel shook his head sarcastically and loomed over Aziraphale's desk, planting his hands firmly on either side of him, "Oh wait, I did! That's _literally_ _your job_."

"Ah."

Aziraphale was staring at his hands, which were busily tying themselves in knots on the desktop. He forced them to be still and looked up at Gabriel. The expression on the Archangel's face was a bitter mixture of rage and disappointment.

"I'm frightfully sorry, I must have submitted it by accident. This is all very new to me, you see. I promise it won't happen again."

Gabriel placed a big, heavy hand on Aziraphale's shoulder and squeezed. He did it much, much too hard. It was as if Gabriel had read the instructions for issuing a reassuring shoulder squeeze but hadn't paid attention to the units of force. If Aziraphale had been human, he was fairly certain he'd be nursing a newly-broken collarbone.

"No," he said, "I know you won't. I didn't want to say anything before because, y'know, you'd just been discorporated and everything," Gabriel punctuated his words with a crude approximation of a sad face, "but this really is your last chance, d'you understand?"

"Last chance?" Aziraphale gulped.

"Come on, Aziraphale. We both know you were never a very _good_ angel. You really made a mess of things down on Earth."

Aziraphale nodded. He supposed that was all true. Having read his records, he couldn't exactly call himself a good angel.

"This is your fresh start, you understand? Your opportunity to make something of yourself. Do your job _properly_ , have some pride in your work for once. If you mess this up, well. We'll have to reconsider whether you really deserve those wings of yours, won't we?"

He nodded again. Gabriel seemed satisfied enough to let go of his shoulder, for which Aziraphale issued a silent prayer of thanks. He rolled it discreetly to make sure it was still in one piece, then fixed Gabriel with his best innocent expression.

"In the spirit of my self-improvement," he said slowly, "it would be very helpful to know exactly _what_ I did wrong down on Earth. Because I honestly can't remember doing anything untoward at all."

He smiled sweetly, a vision of polite contrition in a snazzy bow-tie. Aziraphale may not have been a _good_ angel in the traditional sense, but he was certainly a _smart_ angel. This was all very dangerous territory, but Aziraphale was starting to suspect he'd never known any other kind.

"Of course, there _was_ the occasional mug of cocoa with more marshmallows than strictly necessary and a few little frivolous miracles here and there, but surely that isn't grounds for being down to my last chance, is it?"

Gabriel's face darkened dangerously, and for a split-second Aziraphale wondered if he'd pushed his luck too far. Then the Archangel straightened up, adjusted his coat and smiled beneficently at him. The effect was rather spoiled by the fact that the smile didn't reach his eyes.

"Sometimes, Aziraphale, it's not about what we do, it's about what we _don't_ do. You had such an opportunity to make a difference down on Earth, and what did you do with it?"

Gabriel shrugged.

"You drank some ethanol, you ate some glucose. You bought a bookshop and started slacking off. You could have been an _inspiration_ to them, and you decided you'd rather act like one of them instead. But you aren't one of them, are you? You're an angel."

He leaned over and tapped the polished surface of Aziraphale's desk with his index finger. 

"And angels do their jobs, or they don't get to be angels anymore. Do I make myself clear?"

Aziraphale swallowed, feeling the acute sense-memory of sour saliva in his mouth.

"Perfectly," he croaked.

"Good. Now get back to work."

Gabriel swept out of the office as dramatically as he'd arrived, leaving the door wide open. Aziraphale hurried over to close it and then leaned against it with his whole body, shaking as he slid slowly down to the floor. 

He rested his head against the door and quietly let himself fall apart. After everything that had happened, he felt like he'd earned a good, silent cry in his office. 

If this was his life now, he was sure it wouldn't be the last.


	12. Chapter 12

The escalator ride was short, considering the distances traveled. It was less of an ascension to a higher plane, more of a step sideways into a place that existed in an entirely different set of dimensions to Earth. They had travelled light years, eternities, and at the same time no distance at all. Crowley felt the shift as a shiver down his spine, a brush of ethereal power he hadn't felt for millennia. It could destroy him so easily. If the presence behind the gentle waves of force caressing his soul wanted to, She could burn him into oblivion from the inside out.

Maybe She would. Crowley really, really hoped not.

Crowley gripped the handrail of the escalator tightly enough to make the rubber twist beneath his fingertips. He reminded himself that he was here for Aziraphale, that his angel, the love of his six-thousand year life, was hopelessly in trouble and needed saving like he never had before. For most of their mutual existence, the worst that could happen to them on Earth was a painful discorporation followed by an interminable amount of paperwork. There was always the chance that their own sides might do something much worse, but on the whole Crowley had just sort of assumed that nobody was paying enough attention to bother. And he'd been right, too, as much as Aziraphale might have dithered and fretted over the chance of them being caught together enjoying a scandalously intimate round of sandwiches at the Ritz.

Even after six millennia, the sensation of genuine terror was a new one for Crowley. It had started out as a horrible tingle in the back of his neck on the night when he was handed the basket that heralded the end of the world. By the time the apocalypse had come and gone, it had graduated to rippling, full-body tremors. Before now, Aziraphale was the only one who'd ever been close enough to notice. 

Adam squeezed his other hand, peering up at Crowley through his mop of curls. He was so young, Crowley thought, just a mayfly of a creature, really, but something in his eyes was ancient. Suddenly Adam frowned, little brows furrowing tightly, and Crowley felt his stomach clench.

"Oh no." Adam said wistfully, "I forgot my lunch. Mum made cheese and pickle sandwiches and everything." 

Crowley laughed, relieved. He forced himself to relax; Adam was a child and Crowley was a demon as old as the Universe. He should probably be the one acting like an adult. He let go of Adam's hand and put it in his usual pocket instead, relaxing his body by force of will. 

"Don't worry. You won't get hungry in Heaven, wouldn't be much of a Heaven if you did. Sandwiches'll be there when we get back."

"Cool. I'll have them for tea then."

There was no food in Heaven. Yet another reason, Crowley thought, why they had to get Aziraphale out as soon as possible; his angel had never gone more than a day without eating something delicious for the last four thousand years. In the heady blur of recent times it had occasionally been Crowley. Being stuck in Heaven must be torture for an angel used to indulging all five senses, preferably at once. 

The end of the escalator jolted him rudely away from thoughts of Aziraphale wiggling happily as he broke the surface of a crème brulé. He stepped off into a cavernous space, a soaring lobby far larger than the floorplan of the London office building. At the far end of it, flanked by a curved glass reception desk, was a white elevator. The last time Crowley had been here he'd been bound and gagged and really not in the mood to take in the scenery. The time _before_ that, well. That had been a long time ago. Things had changed a bit since then.

Adam leaned in close and whispered:

"Why does Heaven look like a car showroom?"

"Because, Adam, much like humans who sell cars they're all a bunch of pretentious wankers," Hastur whispered in reply, at considerably higher volume. 

"Shut it," Crowley hissed, setting off across the floor as confidently as he could without swinging his hips like a pendulum. Walking upright and uptight like that hurt his back, but angels didn't walk like rock stars. Or how Crowley thought rock stars walked, at any rate, which had stagnated somewhere around the 1970s. 

"Peter! How's tricks?"

The man sitting behind the desk woke up, head shooting up sharply from its resting place on his chest. He was old and bald and friendly-looking, with the slight glow of all humans who'd been beatified shining on his skin. Saints were a bit of a weird grey area as far as Crowley was concerned; they'd been human once and were now something more; holy but not angels. The ones Crowley had encountered on Earth seemed nice enough, in a wide-eyed, overly earnest sort of way, but they gave him the creeps. It was probably to be expected given Crowley's demonic nature, but he had always suspected it was just his natural distrust of anyone with so much sheer, blind, unquestioning faith. Crowley had met Peter when he'd been alive, all those centuries ago, and he'd seemed like one of the more normal ones. Approachable, at least, and not too stingy with the wine. The poor bugger definitely hadn't deserved what happened to him in the end.

There was a slim chance Peter would recognise Crowley as the demon who'd shown Jesus the kingdoms of the world, but he didn't think it was likely. It'd been two thousand years ago and he'd had a very different look back then. Different gender too, come to think of it. 

St. Peter squinted at them, taking in the two alleged angels and one eleven-year-old human. 

"Sorry, I wasn't expecting anyone today. It's been a bit quiet lately, what with everyone taking a break from Earth. Names?"

"Er," Crowley said, stupidly. He'd been expecting to be asked what their business was, why they were returning to Heaven, that sort of thing. Maybe even just a "how can I help you?" With a sinking feeling he realised that he hadn't prepared a response for _who_ they were.

"Names. I need to check if you're expected. Haven't been back home in a while, eh?"

Peter smiled warmly, expectantly. He wasn't Heaven's welcoming committee for nothing, it seemed; the man's aura was friendliness incarnate. Crowley almost let his name slip out completely by accident.

"Um. Adam Young?" Adam said, clearly feeling it too. 

Peter ran a finger down his list of names and nodded sagely. 

"Ah, yes. Here you are." He said, smiling, "It says here I'm to issue something called a 'visitor pass'. How exciting! I don't think I've ever given out anything like that before."

Peter fished around under his desk and brought out a box with a selection of brightly-coloured lanyards inside, which he held out eagerly. Adam reached in and pulled out a red one with little angel wings printed on it and a dangling fob that read "VISITOR" in block capitals. 

"And you two, names?"

"Lavister," Hastur said, cutting Crowley off before he could say his real name, or failing that _, anything_ more sensible. He was grinning. Crowley made a mental note to smack him very hard around the back of the head as soon as he thought he could get away with it. 

"And this here's Anguisel," Hastur continued, pointing at Crowley, "isn't that right?"

"Yep," Crowley grimaced, "that's me. _Anguisel_."

Hastur was laughing at him silently, shaking with barely-controlled mirth as Peter scanned his list. The saint was flipping pages, searching intently for a pair of idiotic names Hastur had made up on the spot, and Crowley could feel their shot at sneaking into Heaven slipping through his fingers. He eyed the elevator desperately. There had to be some way to slip past the old man that didn't involve just legging it and hoping for the best. 

"Look, we're in a bit of a hurry," he said, recovering smoothly, "Been away a long time, you know how it is, we're just _itching_ to get home. Have to accompany the visitor to make sure he doesn't get into trouble."

Peter frowned and turned back to where he'd found Adam's name.

"Oh, ah. Here we are. 'Visitor is to be accompanied by two guardians.' That must be you two. Please go on up, the elevator will take you where you need to go."

"Right, er. Thanks," Crowley said.

This was, to put it mildly, _not_ how he had expected things to go. Demons weren't supposed to be able to put on basic angel disguises and waltz into Heaven. It simply wasn't done. Or, if it was, he was starting to think Heaven had a serious security problem.

"C'mon," Adam said, beckoning to Crowley. He and Hastur were already waiting in the elevator, holding the doors open expectantly. 

"Have a lovely visit, do say hello to Jesus if you see him, would you? It's been a long time since we had the chance to catch up."

"Sure thing. Ciao." Crowley said, saluting casually as he walked away. His brain was several steps behind but eventually it caught up. 

"Hang on, what?"

Peter smiled knowingly at him.

"I never forget a face. I see them all, eventually. It was a kind thing you did for him, even if you kept insisting it wasn't. I don't know what's going on here, but I trust you to keep that child safe."

"Ngh." Crowley said.

"Best be going, hadn't you? Your friends are waiting."

Crowley nodded, making an attempt to school his face into some kind of obedience as he stalked to the waiting elevator. There was one, solitary button for him to press, a glowing white circle in the centre of the wall. Crowley breathed a long, shaking breath and pushed it.

When the doors had closed, swishing gently and accompanied by a pleasant little chime, Crowley ran a hand down his face and whispered to himself:

"What the fucking _fuck_ was that?"

"Bugger if I know," Hastur said, rooting around in his coat for something, presumably another cigarette, "Doesn't matter, does it? We're in. Oi, kid! Did you get rid of my bloody cigarettes?"

"Yes. You two swear a lot, don't you?" Adam said, somewhat disapprovingly. He'd had a lot of lectures from Mr. Young about the moral character of people who swore habitually. He wasn't sure he believed all of it.

"Demons." Crowley said, shrugging, by way of an explanation, "Besides, Heaven's a no-smoking area. Aziraphale used to complain about it constantly. Apparently old Petey wouldn't let them smoke in the lobby even before the smoking ban."

"Do I _look_ as if I give a shit about no-smoking areas?" Hastur grumbled. His usual glower had lost some of its impact now that he was dressed in neat pastels instead of filthy rags.

"If you don't want us to all get caught, you'd better. I'm not getting myself melted because you can't handle an afternoon without nicotine."

Hastur was about to snap back at him when the elevator stopped moving and the doors slid open. There was another small lobby on the other side, with a tall set of automatic glass doors on the other side. Through them, Crowley could see rows of shelves filled with pristine white books. Of course Aziraphale would end up in a _Library_. Where else would he have been?

"Has Heaven always been like this?" Adam asked as they stepped out, his sneakers squeaking on the polished marble floor. "Like a sort of posh University with all glass and metal and lifts? Seems a bit weird to have it be all modern like this. Isn't it meant to be more like harps and clouds and stuff?"

"It was, when I was here last," Crowley said, "it's changed a bit. Not necessarily for the better. We'd best proceed with caution, there's no telling how many angels are in there."

Regardless of how many _other_ angels were in the Library, Aziraphale definitely was. Crowley could feel him, glowing like a beacon to one of his otherworldly senses; he was Crowley's anchor, his lighthouse, his port in a storm. He was all manner of other romantic nautical metaphors. He was Crowley's everything, and he was almost within reach. Forcing himself to walk slowly rather than running at full tilt was physically painful. 

The doors parted as they drew close. A faint, cool breeze met them, along with the dry smell of paper. It was so similar and yet so different to Aziraphale's bookshop that Crowley almost thought he would cry. Where the bookshop was warm and cozy and alive, this place was sterile and dead. He breathed it in, and wondered briefly if Heavenly paper was as flammable as it's Earth counterpart.

"Erm," Adam said, tugging on Crowley's sleeve urgently, "Not to throw the Aziraphale rescue plan off or anything, but I know that guy."

He pointed, and Crowley looked. Then he froze in abject horror.

The Archangel Gabriel was striding towards them, and he did _not_ look happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't resist using the surname Hastur gave in the show (Hastur Lavista indeed)
> 
> "Anguis" is Latin for serpent. Hastur isn't very good at subtle.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a little extra bit that I should have put at the end of the last chapter, but I'm only just realising it doesn't belong in the next one which will have plot™️ and no room for whatever this is.
> 
> I'll roll it up into Chapter 12 once y'all have read it :)

Aziraphale was huddled in the corner of his office, wrapped in the soft comfort of his white wings, when he heard the door quietly swing open. He looked up disinterestedly, head poking out from his feathery cocoon before sinking back down without a word.

"Is everything alright?" Jophiel said, leaning over him like an anxious crane, "I heard shouting. I wasn't expecting to hear shouting."

"No, everything is _not_ alright," Aziraphale murmured, "please go away."

Jophiel lowered herself to the floor awkwardly, as if she'd never considered it could be used for sitting. She reached out as if to touch the other angel and then quickly thought better of it, resting her hand on her knee instead.

"I hadn't realised Gabriel would be so _forceful_ when I submitted the complaint. Perhaps I should have spoken to you personally before I did so."

Aziraphale made a noncommittal noise, muffled by layers of feathers. 

"This is an adjustment for you, I understand that. I just don't understand why you are behaving like this. You seem...so _sad._ "

"I am _miserable_ , thank you very much," Aziraphale replied, without looking up, "And as for Gabriel, well. He's never liked me one bit. The shouting was the least of it."

Jophiel frowned. She felt distressed for the first time in her eternal existence.

"I know you have spent a long time on Earth, but I had thought you'd be happy here. You are home, close to Her love, where you belong. I thought...when Gabriel suggested you join me here I was looking forward to having a colleague I could talk to."

Aziraphale lifted his head from his knees and looked at her quizzically. His eyes were red and raw from crying and Jophiel found it too painful to meet his gaze.

"I have always been alone here," she said, looking at the stack of books on Aziraphale's desk, "I was hoping we could discuss the work. Have stimulating conversations. I hoped that you would enjoy being amongst all this wonderful creativity."

She shifted uncomfortably, hands smoothing invisible wrinkles from her suit trousers.

"You were lonely?"

Aziraphale had a strange look on his face, confused and pitying. Jophiel had never seen another angel look like that.

"I suppose. I don't know if it's possible to be lonely in Heaven," Jophiel smiled wanly, "I am happy in my work. I am surrounded by Her love. What more could I ask for?"

"Oh, my dear. So much," Aziraphale said, his voice rough with emotion. He looked out at the little courtyard attached to his office and sighed.

"Take that, for example. That strange excuse for a garden. What kind of a garden has no plants, no _life_ , for Heaven's sake? Have you ever seen a flower, Jophiel? A daisy or a rose? They only last a few days, a week perhaps. So transient...yet so incredibly beautiful."

He lowered his wings and folded them around his knees, wrapping himself up tightly in a self-soothing embrace. 

"Do you know, I used to miss how stable it is here? How little it changes over the centuries. I thought I wanted stability, but now it just feels suffocating. Do you understand?"

Jophiel shook her head. 

"No, I can't say that I do."

Aziraphale nodded.

"I would like to be alone, now, please."

He didn't look up as Jophiel rose to leave. She paused by the desk and glanced up at the pile of books again. 

"Please don't concern yourself with the work, Aziraphale. I should not have submitted a complaint, it's clear you are still adjusting. It was...unkind of me."

"Thank you, Jophiel. That's very decent of you," Aziraphale said, flatly. 

She closed the door as silently as she'd come. Aziraphale stayed where he was, looking out at the unchanging tableau of cold, white pebbles. His heart longed for green without knowing why.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick note, you'll notice our old friend "Graphic Depictions of Violence" has appeared in the tags. This is for a richly deserved, hopefully satisfying comeuppance but apologies if that's not what you're here for.  
> I wasn't planning on there being any violent bits past the initial stabby bit, but then I realized I really did want to see Gabriel suffer. Enjoy!

"Shit, shit, shit, _shit,_ " Crowley hissed, dragging Adam and Hastur bodily behind the nearest bookcase, "He can't have not seen us, there's no _fucking_ way."

"Hey! You! What do you think you're doing here!" Gabriel shouted, breaking into a run, and Crowley felt the now-familiar sensation of his life going completely and utterly tits-up.

He searched his brain desperately for a plan, any plan, anything that would deflect the juggernaut of Archangel headed straight for them. He came up empty.

"Run for it," Crowley snapped, already grabbing for Adam's hand. They could hide among the shelves somewhere, maybe, or keep running until they circled back around to Aziraphale's position. The angel had mentioned Gabriel going jogging (with an expression of faint disgust on his face), but Crowley reckoned sheer, unadulterated terror would probably give him the edge in a footrace. Gabriel was one of the more powerful Archangels, but he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. If it had been Michael bearing down on them instead, Crowley would have been under no illusions of being able to shake her. Gabriel, on the other hand, could probably be confused by a few well-placed switchbacks and feints.

He pulled Adam halfway down the aisle before realising that Hastur wasn't following.

"C'mon, you bloody idiot! D'you want to get yourself killed?"

"Not running." Hastur growled, "The bastard used me to do his dirty work. Gonna make sure he knows just how _displeased_ I am about it." 

The demon squared his shoulders, cracked his knuckles, and planted his feet firmly in loose fighting stance. 

"What!?" Crowley said, and opened his mouth to say something to the effect that standing up to an Archangel on his own turf was like trying to fight a raging wildfire with a water pistol. He didn't get that far, however, because at that moment Gabriel rounded the corner of the bookshelves and ran straight into Hastur's waiting fist.

It caught him square in the gut, and Gabriel had obviously spent enough time on Earth lately that he reacted with an instinctive "Oof."

He didn't crumple like a human would have, though, and rose up furiously to face the Duke of Hell, who promptly socked him square in the jaw with one lazy punch.

"See, the thing is," Hastur said, kicking Gabriel hard in the shins, "Angels are too stupid to fight properly. Everything's gotta be _fair_ with them, and it's been six thousand years since they did any real violence." 

Gabriel attempted to raise his fists in a boxing stance. Hastur kicked out again, landing a blow that would have broken his kneecap if Gabriel had bothered to manifest one. Even without broken bones, it obviously hurt. Crowley winced as Gabriel fell to his knees, landing directly on the injury with all of his considerable weight.

He cried out, but Hastur silenced him with another swift kick to the diaphragm. 

"Now, me? I _love_ violence. I wonder if I could rip your arm off?" Hastur snarled, yanking Gabriel's arm behind his back, "Ligur would've liked to see that."

"What the fuck are _you_ doing _here_?" Gabriel gasped. His face was contorted with equal parts rage and incredulity. It would've been funny, Crowley thought, if seeing it hadn't required actually being here to see it.

"Bit of revenge here, bit of rescuin' there." Hastur replied, delivering a nasty punch to Gabriel's throat. The Archangel choked and gasped like a dying fish. 

"Thing is, you lied to me. Not very angelic behaviour, eh? Said if I hurt Crowley for you, if I stuck the little angel and watched him suffer, that I'd feel better." Hastur kicked him again. "Said I couldn't feel anything like _love_ , couldn't possibly be _grieving_."

Gabriel bucked under Hastur's weight, caught by the wrist as the demon leaned bodily on him and _twisted_. There was a popping sound and the arm suddenly went limp. Gabriel screamed. It was a hoarse, strangled gurgling sound that set Crowley's teeth on edge. Hastur grinned.

"Stop," Adam yelled, cutting through Hastur's weird, unpleasant laughter, "stop, please! That's enough!"

"Oh, I don't think it is," Hastur drawled, grabbing Gabriel's other arm where it was scrabbling weakly at his trenchcoat. He bent the fingers back until Gabriel groaned and then leaned in and bit deeply into the meat of the palm. Blood welled up, as red as a human's but made of something else entirely.

"Enough! Hastur, you have to stop now." 

Adam had gone very calm. Had they been on Earth Hastur would have had no choice, Crowley was certain of that. But they weren't on Earth. Instead of the ineffable powers of a former antichrist Adam had nothing but the piercing, knowing stare of a child to protect him against a Duke of Hell. Hastur's eyes had clouded over; dead and black as a shark's, and there was Archangel blood dribbling down his chin. 

Crowley stepped in front of Adam, between him and the slavering monster Hastur had become. Or had always been, regardless the smart clothes he was wearing. 

"Stop that. Revenge doesn't help, remember?" Crowley said, bitterly.

As satisfying as it was to watch Gabriel suffer, as much as he wanted to get in a good hard kick to the Archangel's ribs himself, it wasn't worth it. Aziraphale was all that mattered, and pretty soon they'd be surrounded by angels and their rescue window would be slammed shut right on their fingers. Maybe Adam would be alright, with his little Visitor pass dangling around his neck, but Crowley and Aziraphale would be dead or worse.

Hastur too, he supposed. It was harder to feel bad about that.

"Eugh. You really have gone _native_ , Crowley," Hastur said, grabbing Gabriel roughly by his suit collar. He began to walk, dragging the whimpering Archangel behind him out of the library and across the marble floor of the lobby.

"All bloody talk, this lot. Ineffable bleedin' powers coming out the wazoo and they get used to not having to lift a finger."

Gabriel's violet eyes widened as Hastur shoved him into the elevator and pressed the button, temporary physical discomfort forgotten as he began to call forth a lightning storm of angelic power. Unfortunately for Gabriel, he was much too slow. The doors closed smoothly, eclipsing the maelstrom holy light that had a furious archangel at its centre. The elevator dinged cheerfully and set off, headed somewhere else entirely. 

It wasn't entirely clear how the geography of Heaven worked; it was a single office building and many, and once upon a time it had been a marble palace with vaulted ceilings lit by scattered stars. Crowley hoped that wherever Gabriel had gone, it was nice and far away from the library.

"Right then," Hastur said, loping back to Crowley and Adam. The glass doors slid shut behind him as he wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his coat. "Are we getting this angel or what?"

Crowley took in the sight of him, blood staining his chin and coat, hair in disarray, dead, black eyes shining. If anyone was less suited for a rescue mission, Crowley couldn't imagine what they could possibly look like.

"You aren't bloody well going anywhere, you maniac! Stay here and try not to attract any _more_ fucking attention. If anyone comes out of the lift," Crowely gestured vaguely at the elevator, trying not to look at the trail of Gabriel's blood leading into it, "I dunno. At least find out if they mean trouble before you start swinging, would you?"

"No promises," Hastur grinned.

Crowley turned away from him, shuddering all the way down to his bones. He caught sight of Adam, leaning against one of the bookcases with a horrified expression on his face, and felt even worse.

"C'mon," he said, offering his hand. Adam took it wordlessly.

"He'll be alright, Adam." Crowley muttered softly, leading Adam into the canyon of tall bookshelves that led to the centre of the Library, "Archangels are pretty much indestructible. I wish you hadn't had to see that, though."

"He really is a nutter, isn't he?" Adam asked, quietly.

"Yeah. Most demons are, uh, not the most stable of people."

Adam frowned.

"You're not like that, though. I've seen in your head. All you want to do is do annoying things to people and watch TV and get drunk with Aziraphale. Why's that?"

Crowley thought about it as he walked them through the silent Library. There were a few angels about, noses buried in books as they contemplated whatever it was that angels spent their eternal existences contemplating. None of them gave any sign of having noticed anything. Crowley watched one for a few seconds, but it didn't so much as breathe. Only its eyes moved, scanning the lines of dense text with a single-mindedness that Crowley had only ever seen in a dead machine. If he was being brutally honest, they gave him the willies.

"Humanity rubbed off on me, I guess. Going around hurting people on Earth just leads to a lot of hassle. Easier just to mess with them a bit and let them do the hurting themselves, then they've got the consequences to deal with as well. Sort of a two-for-one deal."

Adam looked up at him, unconvinced.

"That's not it. You don't like hurting people."

Crowley thought about the last time he'd been in Heaven, when he'd felt the ground give way beneath his feet. Her love had been torn from him, burning and freezing and hurtling through the firmament that had once been his canvas. The first thing he remembered after surfacing in Hell was pain, sharp and horrible, the first pain to be felt in all creation, and wasn't that a nasty surprise? The second thing was pure, blinding _rage_. It had overwhelmed him for a time, and he had lost himself as all the newly-minted demons collectively railed in anguish against the cruelty of a God that would create them and discard them without a second thought. When Crowley finally found himself again, in a body that felt strange and wrong and incomplete, he had just felt empty. It wasn't until he'd pushed his nose up through the soil of Eden that he could remember feeling anything at all. 

As soon as he had set eyes on Adam and Eve, these new and beautiful and _free_ creatures, he'd felt it. Hope, small and fragile, fluttering between his myriad pairs of ribs. They were impassive, simple things to begin with, but the Apple had changed all that. Once they knew right from wrong, the humans had started to get _creative_ , and Crowley had felt a thrill of pride at how smart they'd become. And then the angel had given up his sword to keep them safe, and Crowley had fallen all over again, altogether more pleasantly. 

Over the centuries, Aziraphale's friendship and affection had soothed his battered soul, had filled the hollow space inside him with a love he couldn't possibly deserve. He'd never be worthy of it, not if he lived another six thousand years, but Aziraphale had given it to him anyway, every bit as readily as he had handed over his sword. 

Crowley loved humanity and its creations; his Bentley and the Golden Girls and ostentatious Italian fashion, but most of all he loved Aziraphale. And unlike most of the other demons, he was loved in return. If he had never felt love again after his fall, he wondered, could he honestly say he would have thought twice about ripping some poor bastard's arm off? He thought the answer was probably "yes, definitely, why would I ever do that," but there was no real way to be sure.

"No, I don't. Never had the stomach for it," he admitted, without elaboration.

Adam nodded. It seemed he was letting the subject drop and Crowley was deeply grateful. They walked out into the central atrium, where more robotic angels were studying at long tables, and Crowley felt his head spin a little as he glanced up into the space above him. Heaven had clearly taken one look at the laws of physics and decided they were more like guidelines, because there was no way a building should be able to be this tall. 

"Bunch of showoffs," he muttered, remembering Hell's low ceilings and ever-present, oppressive grime, "I always said we should've gone full-on Bosch. Got weird with it, y'know? You have to make a bit of an impression, or what's the point? But, oh no, that was too _flash._ "

Aziraphale was on the ground floor, somewhere over toward the back of the building, Crowley could feel him intensely with some sense he'd never cared to name. Aziraphale was the candle to Crowley's moth, and it had been that way since the beginning. No-one looked up from their studies as he and Adam made their way past the desks. Crowley wondered if he'd needed to bother with a disguise at all. They probably wouldn't have noticed him if he'd strolled through naked, singing Bohemian Rhapsody and giving everyone the finger.

There were two doors at the back of the library but Crowley only had eyes for one of them. Aziraphale's name was written on it in silver lettering, and Crowley struggled to keep himself from crying out in relief. He went to throw the door open, gather the angel in his arms and then get the Heaven out of there...and then stopped before his hand touched the handle. 

Aziraphale wouldn't know him. Didn't know him. Hadn't exactly been pleased to see him last time. How would he react to an unfamiliar demon bursting into his office and trying to take him away? There was only one way to find out, he supposed. Adam squeezed his hand encouragingly, and Crowley gripped the handle and turned.

"Aziraphale?" He said, quietly. 

No reply came. He pushed the door fully open and took in the office, with its harsh, minimalist white furniture. Aziraphale was here, he knew it in his soul, but Crowley couldn't see him. He stepped cautiously into the room and choked back an involuntary little gasp as he spotted something soft and white in the far corner, over by the window of the office. Aziraphale was huddled on the floor, wrapped up in his own wings.

"Angel?" Crowley said.

Aziraphale lifted his head, his beautiful blonde curls in disarray and eyes puffy from crying.

"Don't you people knock?" He snapped, "I'm not accepting visitors presently. Kindly go away."

Crowley took off his glasses, looking at his angel with wide, golden eyes. For a second, something like recognition flashed across Aziraphale's face. Whatever it was, it was instantly replaced with confusion.

"Crowley!?" He whispered. Crowley nodded. 

"Angel," he said again, smiling, "God, I've missed you."

He offered a hand to help Aziraphale up, and the angel took it hesitantly. Crowley had never wanted to hug him more in his long, long life, but he didn't. Couldn't. It wouldn't do to scare him off when they were so close to getting him out. Aziraphale retrieved his hand, pulling it away sharply as Crowley ran a gentle thumb across his knuckles.

"What are you doing here?" He hissed, voice teetering on the edge of panic, "You can't be here! You'll be destroyed if they find you! And why on Earth is there a _human child_ with you?"

Adam gave him a cheerful wave and Crowley beamed despite himself. Even without his memories, the angel was still worried about him.

"Oh, shit, you don't remember any of that, huh?" Crowley asked, laughing a little, "Lucky you."

"I'm starting to think I don't remember a damned thing of any importance!" Aziraphale huffed.

Aziraphale folded his arms testily. Under different circumstances Crowley might have felt bad about upsetting him, but he'd missed Aziraphale in every possible way; even watching him working himself up into an almighty snit was comforting.

"Aziraphale, meet Adam. This fine young man is the Antichrist."

"Hullo," Adam said, grinning from ear to ear.

" _The...Antichrist_?"

Aziraphale pulled out his desk chair and sat down heavily. 

"I think," he said, leaning on his desk as though he'd temporarily forgotten to give himself a spine, "that you had better close the door. Some serious explanation is in order and I can't believe I have to sit through it sober."


	15. Chapter 15

Aziraphale was staring blankly into the middle distance and Crowley was slightly afraid that he'd broken him.

"Armageddon. We stopped Armageddon," he said, numbly. 

"S'not as bad as it sounds," Crowley shrugged and made a vague gesture with one hand, "the idea that it might've been _meant_ to turn out like that got bounced around quite a bit. Ineffable plan and all that."

"Ineffable." Aziraphale said softly. 

"Anyway," Crowley continued, "it was Adam who actually stopped it. We did something, I'm pretty sure, but I'll be buggered if I know what, exactly." He smiled tiredly. "Did enough to get blamed for it, I know that much."

"You were moral support, I guess. But, like, really, really good moral support," Adam chimed in. "You were very important, I couldn't have done it without you,"

He looked very pleased with himself; he'd done his best reassuring voice. It was a shame about the actual words, but Adam was eleven and hadn't yet mastered the vital adult skill of making incompetent people feel capable. 

"Cheers, Adam," Crowley said, deadpan.

"S'alright," the Antichrist replied, and patted him patronisingly on the arm. 

"Oh well, I suppose it's all for the best," Aziraphale sighed, "I'm glad I could help. What a tragedy it would have been, all those people just wiped away in the name of a pointless war. And I know it sounds terribly selfish, but I don't think I could bear it if anything happened to my bookshop."

Crowley made a most un-demonic little choking sound and then pretended very hard that he hadn't. 

"Uh. Yeah. Bookshop's just tickety-boo, not a Bible out of place," he gave Aziraphale a tight little smile, "Can't say the same for your corporation, unfortunately. I really thought both sides were going to leave us alone for a bit after we gave them the slip."

Aziraphale opened his mouth to say something; probably to ask how, exactly, they'd managed to escape the combined wrath of Heaven and Hell, but Crowley couldn't think of anything more uncomfortable than explaining that they'd worn one another's bodies like meat suits and given both sets of superiors the instruction to kindly fuck off forever. Instead, he employed the angel's usual tactic of just carrying on talking whenever he didn't want to answer an awkward question.

"I thought we'd get a few hundred years at least. Maybe a thousand. Just a little bloody breathing room to relax and enjoy ourselves in exchange for saving the entire planet, is that too much to ask? Gabriel's more of a bastard than I gave him credit for." 

Aziraphale winced and rubbed at his shoulder. Crowley had known the face the angel wore when he was in pain for thousands of years; it was pinched eyebrows and pursed lips and it set Crowley's teeth on edge. 

"What did he do? What did that stuck-up, self-satisfied arsehole do to you?" He asked, fighting back the urge to punch something. 

Aziraphale sighed.

"Nothing, really. Just gave me one of his little 'pep talks'. He made it quite clear that I am _very_ close to losing my heavenly status, but that's hardly a surprise, um, all things considered."

He smoothed his hands over a folder of papers on his desk, looking at it with a fond sadness. 

"I believe, on some level, erasing my memories and placing me here was his way of trying to prevent my fall. A last chance to be a good angel."

Crowley felt his stomach drop, as if he'd missed the last step of a staircase and found himself falling. 

"You _are_ a good angel, you're the only bloody _good_ angel! The rest are a bunch of--" he swallowed the litany of insults before they drowned the spirit of what he was trying to say, "--they don't hold a candle to you, Aziraphale."

"That's very sweet," Aziraphale said, smiling wistfully, "but the evidence suggests otherwise."

He tapped the folder with one index finger. Crowley caught a glimpse of the title on the cover and blinked, slowly.

"Is that…?" He asked, dreading the answer he knew was coming.

"My miracle records, yes. It appears I spent six thousand years being almost entirely selfish. And, um. Rather sinfully indulgent."

If Aziraphale had seen his records, that meant he'd seen _everything_. All the temptations, all the demonic favours, and oh Hell, a whole lot of amorous rule-bending right there at the end. Aziraphale could read between the lines of a fucking barcode; there was no way he hadn't clocked the implications of teleported clothing and perfectly temperate lubricant. Crowley shoved those particular thoughts away because his angel might not know him, but the evidence of having _known_ him was apparently causing an identity crisis. Which, he had to admit, was a little insulting but not wholly unexpected. Aziraphale had always been afraid to stand up to Heaven, and this particular Aziraphale hadn't had six millennia of Crowley's tacit, unwavering support to help him break away.

"It hurts to think it, but maybe I _do_ deserve this," Aziraphale said, looking at Crowley beseechingly.

There was so much doubt in his eyes it threatened to pull Crowley under, to make him fall all over again. It was the same game they had played for millennia, the push and pull of _I really shouldn't_ and _go on, angel, what's the harm in it?_ It had been fun before, and occasionally they'd both gone a bit too far with it, but it was beginning to dawn on Crowley that it had also been _important_. Without him there to reassure, to comfort, to give unneeded permission to Aziraphale's harmless acts of rebellion, the angel had been left to flounder in his own self-loathing. _I want this, but a good angel wouldn't._ Each one had been a pebble balanced on the top of mountain, and when Armageddon had shaken it the avalanche had been unstoppable.

He stepped around the side of the desk to kneel in front of Aziraphale like a pilgrim at the end of a long, long journey.

"Listen to me, angel. Six thousand years I've been alive, and the only thing I've ever been sure about is you," Crowley took one of Aziraphale's hands in his own and squeezed. This time the angel didn't pull away. 

"You love everything so much, and how can _love_ possibly be wrong? You love the world more than anyone else who's ever lived in it, and it'd be nothing but dust and ash right now if you didn't. Just...poof. Gone. Like one of your awful magic tricks."

Aziraphale smiled faintly; just a little twitch at the corner of his mouth that Crowley had missed unbearably.

"And I love you for it, love you so much I used to think it was going to destroy me. Enough to go out for sushi at three in the morning because you're hungry for it, enough to wait four hours for you to finish your blessed inventory, which never changes, by the way, because you use all of your ridiculous intelligence coming up with ways to not sell any bloody books. Enough to actually _stop_ at traffic lights occasionally."

He ran a thumb across Aziraphale's knuckles and thought of all the times he'd wanted to reach out and just touch the angel's hand. There were hundreds of them, thousands even. He swallowed.

"I love you to the end of the world, angel."

Crowley could hear his voice shaking, feel his treacherous human vocal cords betraying him. He cleared his throat awkwardly, and forced out the question he'd come all this way to ask.

"I know you don't know me, but will you trust me? You don't belong here, angel, we need to get you home."

Aziraphale was looking at him the way he had a hundred thousand times before, in restaurants and prison cells and on the wall of Eden, all those years ago. 

"My dear boy," he said, his eyes shining with unshed tears, bright as fragile stars, "I might not know you, but I _want to_. And I trust you, I think I trust you more than I trust myself."

He wiped at his eyes with the sleeve of his coat and looked away, staring at the floor instead of meeting Crowley's gaze. 

"But I can't go anywhere like this, I haven't a body and I feel like I'm only half myself. Gabriel wouldn't even let me see the paperwork for a new one, let alone fill it out. I've rather made a mess of things, I'm afraid."

Crowley gently lifted his face, one finger tucked under the angel's chin. Aziraphale didn't flinch or look away this time.

"Do you know how you died, Aziraphale? You were trying to protect me from a homicidal lunatic. You haven't made a mess of anything."

Aziraphale's face brightened considerably.

"I was?"

"Yeah," Crowley chuckled, "you were. You were going to smack him straight back to hell with your umbrella. My knight in shining tartan."

"Tartan is _stylish._ Honestly, we can't all dress like something from a fashion plate." 

Crowley laughed, his heart finally beginning to feel warm and solid after days of flickering uncertainty. Even without his memories, Aziraphale was still Aziraphale. Crowley chided himself for worrying that he'd be anything else, that he'd be not just a stranger but an entirely different person. Not his angel, just _an_ angel. Apparently there wasn't a force in Heaven or Hell that could strip the angel of his terrible, terrible taste.

"So," Aziraphale said, patting Crowley's hand absently, "What is the plan for waking me from this nightmare? Bundle me off to wherever they manufacture new corporations and hope we can stuff me in one without anyone noticing?"

"Nah," Adam said, "we can do better than that." 

He'd been very quiet during all the emotional theatrics and Crowley had almost forgotten he was there. He decided when he retold the story of his dramatic rescue later on, provided he ever got the chance to, he'd downplay the bit where an eleven-year-old boy was standing in the corner watching while he poured his heart and soul out to Aziraphale. 

"We're gonna go upstairs ask for a body, and for all your memories back," Adam continued, "can't have you forgetting about us stopping the apocalypse. It was probably the most exciting thing that's ever happened and I had to make nearly everyone else forget about it. You tried to shoot me a bit, but it was still cool." 

Adam grinned and held up his visitor's pass proudly. 

"Anyway, I've got an appointment with God, I think. I 'spect She can sort it all out."

"With...the Almighty?" Aziraphale said, as if Adam could have possibly meant anything else, "But...but She hasn't spoken to _anyone_ for thousands of years! Except the Metatron, of course, but between you and me, I think most of his proclamations have been a complete load of hot air."

His brain caught up to his mouth and Aziraphale's face turned pale.

"I'm sorry, did you say I tried to _shoot_ you?"

"Yeah, but you said sorry after," Adam said.

"Let's not overload him, yeah?" Crowley frowned at Adam, trying to mentally compel him to keep his mouth shut, "A lot of crazy stuff happened and it's probably best if we save talking about it until he's got his memory back. C'mon, we should go."

He stood, pulling Aziraphale carefully up with him. 

"Gladly," Aziraphale said, smoothing his coat. He kept hold of Crowley's hand, and Crowley suppressed a shiver at how cold the angel felt. Without a body, Aziraphale felt weightless and unreal. He felt wrong, somehow. He was warmth, down on Earth; sunshine and dust and pastry crumbs sticking to old velvet. Here, he was a shadow of himself. He had no anchor in reality.

"Oh," Crowley said, remembering suddenly why the pocket of his blazer had felt heavy for the past few days, "I forgot, I have something of yours. Kept it safe for you, er, in case you needed it again."

He fished out the gold ring that was all that was left of Aziraphale's corporation and heard the angel gasp. 

"My ring…" he said, softly, reaching tentatively for it. There was a ring on Aziraphale's right hand but it was a plain gold band, an unconscious afterthought. It vanished into nothingness as soon as he touched the one in Crowley's hand. The angel slipped the old, ornate ring onto his finger and smiled.

"Thank you, my dear. I didn't think I'd ever see it again. It feels...warm."

"Well, yeah. Been in my pocket," Crowley explained.

"Not like that," Aziraphale said, "It feels loved. Cherished."

"You've had it hundreds of years, angel. Hardly surprising."

Aziraphale gave him a knowing look, one that Crowley had seen a lot in recent years.

"Of course, silly me. That must be it," he said.

The angel took one last look around his office and snapped his fingers, sending the folder of miracles somewhere else. Crowley hoped he'd sent it to the centre of the nearest star, but knowing Aziraphale it was more likely to be on Gabriel's desk with a sarcastic little note on it.

"Let's go, I've had quite enough of this place."

Crowley's heart roared in his ears as he led them out of the office and into the long canyon of shelves. It pounded in his chest, throbbed in the hand clasped in the angel's own, so loud and fierce he worried that it would echo in the silence of the library. They were so close. This time, a few of the silent angels seemed to pause in their reading as they passed, although Crowley couldn't have said whether he imagined it. They moved like ghosts through the stacks, past the tables in the shining atrium, and toward the elevator, slow and deliberate. Crowley held his breath. Adam made sure his trainers didn't so much a squeak on the marble floor. Aziraphale squeezed Crowley's hand like a vice.

They were almost out, almost there, when a small, nervous-looking angel rounded a shelf and almost bumped into them.

"Does nobody look where they're going in this blessed place," Crowley hissed under his breath, and tried to come up with something, anything he could say to explain away a poorly disguised demon holding hands with an angel and a human child.

"Pravuil!" Aziraphale said quietly, "Crowley, don't panic, he's a friend." He turned to the angel, whose face was slowly turning crimson, "You won't tell anyone we're leaving, will you, dear?"

" _Crowley_?" The angel, apparently Pravuil, gulped. Crowley gave him a look that suggested, forcefully, that telling the authorities would result in great personal harm. 

"Uuhm, me? No, no, no, wouldn't dream of it," he stuttered, "Perish the thought. Um."

Pravuil looked around anxiously. "Good luck, Aziraphale," he whispered, "I hope you get what you want."

"Thank you," Aziraphale replied, "please tell Jophiel...er. Tell her something, would you? Make something up if you need to. So she knows I'm not leaving on her account."

"Yes, I will. Can't guarantee she'll listen or even really notice you've gone, but I'll think of something to say."

"Thank you again. I'm not sure I can ever thank you enough," Aziraphale smiled.

"Like I said, _don't_ mention it," Pravuil replied, and hurried off into the stacks with a small smile on his face. 

"Weaselly little bugger," Crowley said, suspiciously, "Will he keep his mouth shut or have we got a problem?"

"Oh, he'll keep quiet. He's a good sort, if a bit fidgety. I think Gabriel enjoys shouting at him, poor thing."

"I've had teachers like that," Adam said, sympathetically, "it's rubbish being the one that's always in trouble."

Crowley relaxed a little. Anyone who hated Gabriel was probably trustworthy. 

They covered the last few meters before the glass doors unmolested, before Crowley remembered who was waiting on the other side of them. 

"Angel, there's someone else with us, someone I didn't mention. Er. Another demon. He's a bit--"

He was interrupted by Aziraphale's terrified squeak as the doors slid apart and Hastur stepped out into the open.

"Good lord!" Aziraphale gasped, ducking behind Crowley.

Hastur was still covered in bloodstains, and had apparently gotten bored with being in disguise. His coat was ripped around the bottom, his jumper full of holes. He'd done something horrible to his hair. 

"--of an idiot." Crowley finished, lamely.

"Whose blood is that?" Aziraphale hissed.

"It's Gabriel's." He admitted, shrugging sheepishly.

Hastur grinned.

"Oh, well, in that case," Aziraphale said, head held high as he stepped out from Crowley's shadow and offering his hand, "Aziraphale, Angel of the Eastern Gate. It's a pleasure to meet you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear lord, this chapter! It took forever to write and I started over three times! 
> 
> I hope it came out OK!


	16. Chapter 16

"Hastur, Duke of Hell," the demon replied, "we're already acquainted." 

He grinned nastily. Shaking his hand had been a mistake, Aziraphale quickly realized. It was unpleasantly sticky. In Aziraphale's opinion, there was no possible good reason for anyone's hand to be sticky, particularly if that person happened to be a demon.

"Is that so? Well then, you have me at a disadvantage."

"Had you at one last time, too. I think we can definitely say I won that one."

Aziraphale extracted his hand and fought the urge to wipe it on his coat. Whatever it was it smelled awful, and he was sure it would stain. He had a handkerchief somewhere, he was sure of it, but it would hardly be polite to start digging around for it. His discomfort was evidently obvious, because Adam handed him a tissue.

"Hastur's got something he wants to say," Adam said, looking pointedly at Hastur.

"No I don't."

"Yes, you _do_."

"Won't."

"Hastur," Adam said. The demon rolled his black eyes.

"Eugh...sorry for killing you and all that," Hastur grumbled. 

Aziraphale took a step backwards and bumped ungracefully into Crowley.

"I beg your pardon?" He said, aghast.

"And?" Adam said.

"And I promise not to do it again. There, are you happy? This therapy lark is a load of bollocks if you ask me. Demons don't need bloody therapy, we're _meant_ to be filled with rage, that's the point."

Adam patted Hastur's arm encouragingly.

"It's good for you, Pepper's Mum told us loads about it. Said it helped her with her anger issues over Pepper's Dad being so useless." 

"Why in God's name," Aziraphale whispered angrily in Crowley's ear, "did you let me _shake his hand_."

Much to Aziraphale's consternation, Crowley had the temerity to laugh.

"I didn't _let_ you do anything, angel, you practically bit it off. If you weren't so bloody English this wouldn't be an issue."

He felt Crowley's hand on his back, warm and comforting. It was strange, after a lifetime of apparent loneliness, to be touched so casually. Strange but very welcome.

"Listen, I'll keep both eyes on him, don't worry," Crowley muttered, leaning in close, "If he so much as moves in your direction he'll have to go through me, and probably Adam as well, not that I'd let him touch the kid either. I don't think he will, though. He's trying. It's making me feel ill, to be honest, but he _is_ trying."

Hastur was blowing his nose on the sleeve of his coat. It left a dark smudge that he looked extremely pleased with.

"I have a feeling he's very trying indeed," Aziraphale said, acidly.

"Oh yes. And don't inhale when we get in the lift with him."

The elevator had a trail of blood leading to it. Aziraphale knew he should probably feel bad about that, but he really, really didn't. He took a deep breath and thought about their ultimate destination. His last conversation with God had been unfortunate, to say the least. If he'd known it would be the last time She ever spoke to him, he wondered if he would have come clean about the flaming sword. Probably not. It didn't do to dwell on it.

Adam pressed the button to call the lift excitedly. 

"This is so cool," he said, "I can't believe I'm going to meet God. Actual God."

"She's very nice, from what I can remember," Aziraphale said, "Although quite intimidating. Try not to upset Her." He thought back to Sodom and Gomorrah, the tower of Babel and the Flood, and swallowed. "She has been known to have a little bit of a temper."

The doors opened, and everyone shuffled into the elevator. Adam pressed the button next to the doors and they slid closed with a happy little chime. Aziraphale situated himself as far from Hastur as possible as the elevator began to ascend, but Crowley had been right about the odor; the demon smelled like an open sewer and there truly was no escaping it. Crowley himself had gone very still. Aziraphale watched him closely, studying the lines around his eyes, the tension in his forehead. It didn't take six thousand years of friendship to know that Crowley was out of his mind with stress.

"Crowley?" He said, quietly. 

Adam had started explaining the details of psychotherapy to Hastur, who seemed to be particularly interested in the idea of shrinking heads. Adam wasn't totally sure where that came in, but he was having a decent stab at guessing. Neither of them noticed the little whimper that came from Crowley.

"Are you alright, my dear?" Aziraphale said, keeping his voice as soothing as possible. 

Crowley shook his head, almost imperceptibly.

Slowly, deliberately, Aziraphale reached out and took Crowley's hand. He laced their fingers together and felt the demon shiver.

"Don't have to do that," Crowley rasped.

"I'm not doing it because I have to, I'm doing it because I _want_ to. You came to rescue me, my dear. To Heaven, of all places. I'm hardly going to let you suffer in silence."

"Not suffering. M'fine," Crowley said. His voice cracked pitifully.

"Crowley."

"Ngk. Scared, alright? Didn't exactly part on good terms."

Aziraphale squeezed his hand, which felt warm and solid and wonderful in his own. Whoever he had been before, when he had known this creature from the beginning, he could tell he had been indescribably lucky. 

"We will be alright, my dear. She moves in mysterious ways, but She wouldn't call us before her just to punish us."

"That was very much _not_ my experience," Crowley said, miserably.

"Well, I shall have to ask Her about that," he said, patting Crowley's hand reassuringly, "You don't seem the sort to be a demon at all. And if this business with stopping the Apocalypse doesn't merit forgiveness, I don't know what does."

Crowley went stiff and held Aziraphale's hand in a death-grip. He opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the ding of the elevator and Adam tugging them all out into the lobby.

And what a lobby it was. The floor was marble shot through with veins of gold, and the walls were faceted crystal, rising to a dome that shone with captive starlight. Through the flat areas of crystal, Aziraphale could see a vista of clouds and blue sky, and far below them, smudges of brilliant green. The only other feature in the room was a paneled white door with a plain brass handle. It could be any door in any one of a million houses down on Earth. It didn't look like the door of an almighty being of limitless power.

Adam looked around in wonder, almost tripping over his shoelaces as he gazed up at the rainbows dancing in the air. 

"Wow!" he shouted, "Look at this place! I'm gonna go in, you guys coming?"

"We'll be along in a minute, you go on ahead." Aziraphale replied. Crowley's hand held him in place like an anchor, and it was clear he had a demon to comfort before he was going anywhere.

Adam smiled ecstatically and opened the door, rushing inside and letting it slam shut behind him. 

"Well. I'm going in too," Hastur said, and turned to follow.

"You're not...worried?" Crowley asked, forcing the question out as if each word caused him pain.

"Nah. I come out with Ligur or I don't come out at all. Either's better than being like this. See you on the other side."

He went through, disappearing into whatever lay beyond.

"Not if I see you first," Crowley said, staring after the other demon with unmasked hatred.

"What's the matter, dear boy?" Aziraphale asked, and was completely unprepared for Crowley to grab him by the lapels and push him up against a crystalline wall.

"What's the matter? What's the _matter_ , Aziraphale?" Crowley hissed, his face inches from Aziraphale's own, "You want to ask questions of God, angel? You want Her to _forgive_ me? Look at me, look at what I am. Not at the haircut and the clothes, really _actually_ look."

"I, I don't…" Aziraphale stammered. He knew what Crowley was asking, and it made him suddenly afraid. 

" _Do it_ ," the demon growled.

Aziraphale closed his eyes and reached out with his other senses, ones no mortal had ever possessed. He could feel Crowley in every conceivable dimension; in the one where Heaven was a cold, swanky office building, the one where it was a limitless void of light and harmony, the one where it was the calm, empty void at the centre of the Universe. A thousand dimensions, a thousand Crowleys, all overlapping and intertwined, facets of the same being illuminated for a fraction of a second.

Some were coal-black, feathered and screaming, some had undulating scales like glittering rubies. Some were made of interlinked strands of writhing hellfire. All were demonic, as different from the essence of an angel as night is to day. 

"Oh," Aziraphale gasped, his eyes flying open, "Oh, my dear. You're _beautiful_."

"What? Don't lie to me," Crowley breathed, loosening his grip on Aziraphale and lurching awkwardly backwards.

"No, no, don't run away, please," Aziraphale pleaded, "I'm sorry, I should never have implied you needed forgiveness," he cleared his throat and grabbed Crowley's arms tightly before the demon could pull away, "I just mean you're _you_ , Crowley. It's what you were always meant to be. Perfectly you. Just as you are." 

"No, look, Aziraphale, you don't get to just. Do this, whatever this is!" Crowley said, "You don't _know_ me. And you can't go asking questions in there, do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

Aziraphale frowned. 

"Whatever do you mean?"

"This, angel!" Crowley whipped off his blue glasses and threw them away, sending them skittering across the floor. "This is what you get when you ask _questions_! Just, _please_ ," he said, voice wobbling on the edge of tears, "please, angel, just ask for your memories and your body back, would you? Don't do anything you can't take back."

Crowley was shaking, almost falling apart in Aziraphale's hands. He stroked the demon's arms, holding him steady until he started to breathe normally again.

"Crowley, I might not always have trusted Heaven but I have faith in Her. I trust Her. She will not harm me, I can feel it," he smiled up at Crowley, who still looked terrified, "and if I'm wrong and I _do_ fall, I'm not afraid. I'll have you to catch me, my dear. What more could I ask for?"

"Don't, angel," Crowley sniffed, "you wouldn't like it." 

"I have faith that I won't. But I also know that this will be the first time I get the chance to speak to my Creator in six thousand years. I have to speak my mind, or what's the point in having one?"

"Still think it's a bad idea," Crowley said, looking anxiously at the door. 

Aziraphale wondered for a second whether he should do the thing he wanted to do or if it was wholly inappropriate, and then gave up agonising and just did it. He pulled Crowley into a tight embrace, the first hug he'd given in a hundred years. 

"Have faith, my dear," Aziraphale said, rubbing Crowley's back as the demon clung to him, "it's all we can do."

"M'demon," Crowley replied, muffled against the collar of Aziraphale's coat, "don't have faith."

"Faith in me, then." 

Aziraphale pressed his face against Crowley's shoulder and breathed him in, his strange new/familiar scent of woodsmoke and cologne. It was intoxicating.

"...I could do that, yeah,"

"Good." 

Slowly, gradually, Aziraphale slackened his grip until they were standing close together but no longer embracing. He took the demon's hand once more and led him across the room to where the door stood, waiting patiently for them.

"Time to face the music, wouldn't you say?" He said, reaching for the handle and turning it.

"Fine," Crowley replied, as they stepped through the doorway together, "but I'm not going to bloody dance to it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all get another chapter already cause this one just whooshed right out of me.
> 
> I've put a tentative end point of two more chapters, so we're almost there, folks!


	17. Chapter 17

The first thing that Crowley noticed when he entered God's domain was that he was alone; his hand was empty and his angel was nowhere to be seen. The second was that there wasn't much else to be seen, either. The space was filled with a pearly-white fog, thick enough that Crowley's feet looked ghostly and indistinct, and suffused with a pale glow that was comfort incarnate. Gazing upon the face of God had been painful even in the dimly-remembered time Crowley had spent as an angel; She was too bright, too powerful. Scary as fuck, in other words. Crowley assumed the fog was for his benefit, to prevent him from being spontaneously dissolved by the sheer blinding _force_ of her presence. 

He could feel it, the rushing, pounding Grace of Her being, but it was muffled, as if he was watching a hurricane raging on the other side of a thick glass window. That'll be the damnation, he thought absently. He had no idea how it must feel to Aziraphale, wherever he was. Like being swept away by a tsunami, maybe, or over Niagara Falls. He hoped the angel would be able to find himself again.

The final thing he noticed, yellow eyes squinting in the swirling fog, was his outfit. He was back in his own, trademark black; his current favourite combo of blazer, jeans and designer T-shirt. It was good to be dressed like himself again, he supposed, but it did make him feel weirdly exposed.

"Don't like being dressed without my consent, for future reference," he muttered. 

He realised it was the first thing he had said to God in six thousand years, and groaned.

"Obviously, uh, it doesn't matter. I mean, you made me, dress me up like a Barbie doll for all I care."

Crowley became aware of a shift in the air, a vague stirring of amusement. Calm flowed through him like water, soothing his frayed nerves. It was almost like being drunk, except without the nagging anxiety that he was making a bit of a tit of himself.

"So...I take it I'm not in trouble, then?"

<No, my child> a voice came, transmitted directly to the back of his brain, warm molasses moving slowly through his consciousness, <you're not in trouble, quite the opposite>

"Oh. Well, good. I guess. Although what does that make me, exactly? A puppet? A toy? Nothing good, that's for damned sure."

The atmosphere changed, became questioning, drawing words from him before he had a chance to think about them.

"I mean what was this all _for_?" He asked, rising anger threatening to burst through his artificial calm, "What was the point? You make me, right? And I do what I do, y'know, like I have any other option, because you _made_ me curious, I ask a few questions and then I get thrown away? Just like that?" 

He began pacing back and forth on the barely-there ground beneath his feet. 

"Thanks but no thanks, Crowley, you weren't mindlessly obedient enough to be an angel, so have an eternity of agony and doubt instead?"

He wasn't sure if the twisting rage he could feel was coming from inside or outside, but he figured he'd probably already said enough to guarantee his disintegration if God was feeling vengeful. In for a penny, in for a pound.

"And, if that wasn't bad enough! Here's an angel, a stupid, brilliant, wonderful angel, and you're going to _love_ him, and you're not going to know for six-fucking-thousand years if he loves you back! Not until after the Apocalypse, which you have to stop, apparently, or maybe you don't? Shouldn't? Maybe you'll be destroyed because it's actually _meant_ to happen? Or it isn't and you'll be destroyed _anyway_? Fuck!"

Crowley fisted his hands in his hair, pulling hard to try and ground himself. He was hyperventilating, he realised, and it couldn't be good for a demon to breathe in too much God-vapour, surely?

"Shit," He said, breathlessly, "What do I know, anyway? I'm just a demon. Don't exactly have the best track-record on the decision front."

The atmosphere around him was still amused, he noticed. There was a little sadness too, or pity, perhaps. Crowley wasn't sure which.

<Tell me, Crowley, have you come across the concept of a "yes-man"?> the She said, cryptically.

***

At first, Aziraphale couldn't tell where he ended and the Almighty began. He lost himself on the tides of her, swept away completely. Gradually, She gathered him up, pieced together the feathers and light and breath of his consciousness into a being the approximate shape and size of a human man. Aziraphale shook, falling to his knees onto a ground that was barely there.

<It's been a long time, Aziraphale> She said, happily.

He felt a wave of joy spread through him; the contentment he'd had when he had lived in Heaven, before humanity had been more than a gleam in Her eye. Aziraphale hid his face in his hands and sobbed, completely overwhelmed. After a few blissful seconds of holy ecstasy, he felt it slowly recede until he could see and feel and think again.

<Sorry, I got a bit carried away. I have missed you, child>

"I missed you, too," He said, wiping the tears from his face.

<You seem to be missing a part of yourself, as well.>

"Yes. I was hoping you could restore it, Lord, if it pleases you."

The light surrounding him had dimmed, from blinding sunlight to a lambent glow, and Aziraphale found he could open his eyes. Mist swirled around him, soft and warm. It was like being inside a cloud.

<You wish to have your memories of the demon Crowley, Serpent of Eden and your sworn adversary on Earth, restored?>

"Er," Aziraphale said. From somewhere far above him, he heard a sound that could have been cosmic laughter.

<Please relax, Aziraphale, just a small joke. I am well aware of the nature of your relationship>

"Um. You are?"

Aziraphale waited anxiously for an answer, but none came. Instead, he felt the flood of true memories washing away Gabriel's hasty patchwork of lies. So many, many memories. A million moments over thousands of years, more than Aziraphale could have possibly hoped for. He was glad he was already on his knees, because it would have knocked him off his feet.

"Oh! Oh it's so _much_."

The mists swirled around him playfully, brushing softly through his hair as Aziraphale tried to process six thousand years-worth of slowly, awkwardly falling in love hitting him all at the same time. 

<Yes, my child>

Aziraphale sat, cradled in the warm embrace of his creator, and let Crowley take root in his soul.

***

"Yes-men? Uh, yeah. Obviously. I used to go to a ton of seminars back in the 80s. Learned an awful lot, not what they were trying to teach of course, but...oh no."

Crowley pinched the bridge of his nose. He had a migraine coming on, possibly from so much heavenly exposure to his demonic constitution, possibly from sheer frustration. 

"You can't seriously be telling me that…"

<When you're all powerful, people don't want to criticize>

"That makes it worse!" Crowley growled, "You wanted us to question you? What's wrong with you?"

<Yes. Exactly like that. You're not afraid, are you? You can only afford to be unafraid when you have nothing left to lose>

"Not afraid?" Crowley looked around frantically for something to punch or kick, and came up short. "I'm fucking _terrified_. I've _always_ been fucking terrified."

Tendrils of mist drew close around him, trying to soothe and comfort. He batted them away ineffectually.

<You always did it anyway>

"Brilliant," Crowley hissed, "just brilliant. Glad I could be of ssservice! All of us cut loosssse so you could feel better about your decisionss."

<They are important decisions, Crowley>

"Yeah. Yeah, ssure. What's a little unending misery as long as the work getsss done?"

Crowley waited, but there was no reply.

"You know what," he said, jabbing an angry finger at the fog, "Aziraphale wanted you to forgive me, but I don't want that. Not now, not ever. I don't forgive _you_."

He drew a ragged breath, vaguely expecting it to be his last. Then he took another one.

<Would you have been happier as an angel, Crowley?> She asked, and it hurt like a punch in the gut.

***

Aziraphale stood up slowly, reeling a little from reabsorbing the better half of his existence. He felt better, though. So much better. Whole, for the first time in 

<I have restored your body as well, Aziraphale. You are free to return to your life, with my blessing>

Aziraphale felt the door appear rather than saw it; it was behind him, in the direction he had come from. He felt his body change at the same time, becoming warm flesh and blood wrapped in layers of worn fabric. Sighing happily, he ran his hands across the balding velvet of his waistcoat. It was all as he'd left it, down to the last atom.

"Oh, my clothes, I thought they were gone forever. Thank you!"

Aziraphale, newly restored to himself, turned towards the door, reached for the handle, and stopped. It would have been so easy to walk out. It was what he _should_ do, for Crowley's sake. It was a shame, then, that he couldn't do it.

"I...I'm afraid I have to ask. Why did it have to happen like this? Was all of his pain really necessary?"

<It is...what's that word you're so fond of? Ah, yes. Ineffable. At least for you, my child. Don't let it trouble you>

"Um. The thing is, it does. Trouble me. I love him so very much, you see, and he's suffered unbearably. More than anyone as _good_ as he is could possibly deserve."

<We all must make sacrifices>

"Yes, but he didn't choose to! I've seen him when he thinks I'm not looking at him and he's still hurting, even after six thousand years. I just don't understand why!"

<It seems _you_ are willing to sacrifice everything for him> She said, and Aziraphale shivered as the temperature dropped and the ethereal glow dimmed to a pale reflection of its former radiance. <Is that the case, Aziraphale?>

This was it, he thought. His last moment of grace before he fell, screaming, into the pit. Aziraphale closed his eyes and felt the band of gold around his finger pulse steadily. Crowley had held it next to his heart for days, while he grieved and hoped for Aziraphale. It was overflowing with his love; aching and desperate. It didn't matter, he realised. Crowley would be there whatever happened.

"Yes," he breathed. 

He waited, listening to the sound of his brand new heartbeat roaring in his ears, for the blow that would strike him down.

The blow didn't come. 

<Good> She said, flaring with warmth and light once more. If Aziraphale had to guess, he would have said she was smiling.

<I expected nothing less>

***

"Yes! Obviously! What kind of question is that!"

<An angel, in Heaven. Be honest, Crowley, if not for my sake then for your own>

Crowley thought of the time before time when he'd flung stars like paint across the canvas of night, when he'd had freedom and surety in spades. He'd been happy, for the most part. But when it was done, all vast and glittering and waiting for life to come and fill it, he'd felt empty. Lost. 

And then Lucifer and the boys had rolled on through, with a purpose and a message, and it wasn't like he had anything better to do.

And after, when the pain had receded to a low hum, there had been Aziraphale, smiling and beautiful. And ridiculous, obviously. Ridiculous and perfect.

"It doesn't matter," he said, "I didn't get to choose. You did the choosing for me and now I'll never know, will I?"

<No. But your life and Aziraphale's would have been very different>

Crowley felt his rage collapse inside his chest, sinking like a soufflé taken out of the oven too early. He missed it.

"You put both of us through hell for millennia, you know that?" He said, gazing morosely out into the fog. "Not just me. Both of us. He almost drove himself mad worrying about whether we could be seen in the same restaurant, let alone if we could admit how we felt about each other."

Aziraphale had cried it all out a few weeks after the End failed to come, sobbing into Crowley's shoulder after he'd made a joke about the amount of unpaid speeding tickets he'd collected over the years.

"I made the speed gun register a thousand miles an hour once," he'd said, grinning, "ended up getting told off by the RAF for breaching low-flying aircraft laws."

And then he'd had a lapful of angel, who wept and apologised inconsolably for thirty minutes while Crowley tried his best to calm him down. 

"I thought I'd ruined _everything_ ," Aziraphale had said, "too fast, I said, what an idiot! Six thousand years and too fast! But if anything had happened to you…"

"Shhh, angel," he'd said, stroking Aziraphale's back through his many, many layers, "I know. I knew. It's alright."

The mists were suspiciously quiet. It was a neutral kind of quiet; not the seething silence of waiting one's turn to do the yelling or the playful silence of anticipating the punchline of a joke. Crowley was sure that if he was meant to know what it meant, he would. Right now, he just felt sick and hollow.

"The poor bastard spent his entire existence doing what he thought you wanted, and what did he get for it? Almost executed by his superiors, stabbed by a demon, his memory wiped like a misbehaving computer. And if _you_ punish him now, make him fall just for wanting things to be better, I'll...I dunno. Be furious at you for the rest of my existence, I guess."

Crowley sighed. In the cosmic game that was his life, he didn't hold any of the cards. He wasn't even a player. He was a just a piece, albeit one that moved a little drunkenly across the board. 

"I thought angels were supposed to be, y'know. Good and kind and all that. Gentle. Not vengeful, war-obsessed bastards. Not a single one of them has a fraction of Aziraphale's kindness, and they treat him like shit. Some thank you that is, for six thousand years of loyal service."

<Now, on that we agree. I believe my Archangels are in need of more hands-on management>

"Are you...admitting you were _wrong_ about something?" Crowley asked, incredulously.

<Don't push your luck. Even for you, there are limits> She said. 

A door appeared, the same as the one Crowley had entered by, and with a distinct air of being a temporary feature that a demon would be sensible to take advantage of.

<You may not forgive me, Crowley, but I hope you can trust me>

"I don't have much choice, do I?" he said, and left God's presence for the second and final time. 

***

Aziraphale was hovering by the door, trying to force himself through it. It was proving difficult.

<You seem troubled, Aziraphale. Is there anything else you need?>

"Er. Not exactly. I was just wondering about the other angels. Are they happy, do you think? I used to think so, but I'm not so sure anymore."

He waited awkwardly, fiddling with his buttons, but it seemed like there was no reply forthcoming.

"Ah. Right then. It really was a great honour to speak with you again, and thank you. For everything. Goodbye, I suppose? Or, what is it Crowley's always saying…" he smiled, "Ah yes. Ciao."

Aziraphale stepped through the door with a smile and a little wave, and gently closed it behind him. The sound of gentle laughter rang through the infinite void. As it came to an end there was, once again, the Word. This time, however, the Word was:

<Ciao!>

***

In another swirling white infinity, Hastur was somehow making the place grubbier just by standing there. 

"Just so you know," he said, picking at the dried Archangel blood under his fingernails, "I ain't going anywhere until you give him back. And don't give me any crap about not bein' able to. You made him once, you can do it again."

The mists began to churn angrily, which probably would've worried Hastur if he still had the capability to be worried about anything. He'd always found it easier to wait until after things happened and take out his rage on whoever was closest. 

<And why shouldn't I disintegrate you on the spot, Hastur, so called "Duke of Hell">

"'Cause then you'd have bits of me floating around inside you forever. And bits of a few other people who pissed me off recently. And whatever's been growing in my shoes. That sound like something you want?"

<I could banish you to the centre of a star with a single thought, little demon. A very clean burn indeed>

Hastur curled his lip. 

"That all you got? Do it then, I don't care! You can't do anything worse than taking him away."

He felt around for his cigarettes, wondering vaguely whether the Presence of God was a non-smoking area as well, before he remembered Adam had gotten rid of them. The damned kid made him feel itchy when he did stuff like that. Like he should give this "hand washing" lark at try. The fog around him seemed to calm as he did so, curious tendrils curling toward him.

<You actually love him, don't you?>

"Yeah. It hurts and it's horrible sometimes. But yeah, I do. Still feels weird to say it."

<Do you believe he loves you in return?>

Hastur shrugged.

"How would I know? It doesn't matter if he doesn't. If I could turn it off I would have done it already when he got murdered, wouldn't I? Nobody would bloody _choose_ to feel like this."

He sat down on the floor, pulled off one boot and began shaking it out. Little pieces of something indescribable fluttered out, followed by the clatter of several small, unidentifiable bones falling to the ground.

"That's better. S'been in there for weeks and I couldn't be bothered to get rid of it. Can't remember what Ligur said it was originally but it was good enough to save some for later."

There was a frustrated silence, broken only by the sound of Hastur gnawing on his toenails.

<Stop that. He's restored, now get out>

A door appeared, accompanied by the sound of a surprised Duke of Hell spitting a crescent of toenail across the floor. Hastur scrambled to his feet and rushed toward it, but found it wouldn't open. He pulled the handle much harder than a normal door could have taken, but it didn't budge an inch.

<Don't even think about leaving that boot here>

"Yes, your majesty," he said, sarcastically, and shoved the offending footwear under one arm. This time the door couldn't open quickly enough.

***

In a final place, where the unfiltered essence of God could let Herself hang loose, as it were, Adam Young beheld his Grandmother and smiled.

"Hello dear," she said, "it's wonderful to finally meet you."

"Wow!" Adam said, his eyes filled with stars.

"Yes," She said, and put an affectionate arm the size of a galaxy around his shoulders, "Tell me, Adam, do you know how to play cards?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're almost there! I almost had God stay silent and let them talk to themselves, but I remembered She narrates the whole damn show so that would've been a bit weird :D


	18. Chapter 18

"So this card here?" Adam said, turning it over in his hand.

"Oh, don't show your hand, dear, it takes all the fun out of it. But yes, you can play that one."

***

One side of the door had been in Heaven, but it opened out somewhere else entirely. Hastur stumbled out into an alleyway in the sunset shadow of the London skyscraper, heavy with summer heat and exhaust fumes. There were many signs that he was back on Earth again; the row of industrial bins, the whine of the building's air-conditioning outlet, and most importantly, a very confused-looking demon smoking the dog-end of a cigarette.

"Ligur!"

"Hastur?" Ligur said, blinking his prismatic eyes as if he couldn't believe what they were telling him. "S'that really you? Am I really here?"

"Yeah." Hastur lurched forward and enfolded him in an embrace, something he never would have done before outside of the dingy, unused conference-rooms of Hell.

"Careful mate, you'll set your hair on fire," Ligur said, bewildered, as Hastur squeezed him tightly enough to bruise his ribs. He spat the cigarette out into a nearby puddle and stood there limply while Hastur trembled against him.

"What's brought all this on?" He asked.

"You were dead," Hastur explained, breathing in the ozone and burned rubber scent of him.

"Been dead before, lots of times. I never got a hug out of it."

"Not discorporated, dead dead. Gone forever. Don't you remember any of it?"

"Not really. I remember we were going to get that slippery little bastard Crowley and make him wish he'd never existed. Don't remember much after that."

Ligur looked up at the sunlight glinting off the windows up above, rich and orange and completely unlike the light in either Heaven or Hell. This was Earth, alright. Nowhere else felt as solid, as mundane. It all felt a lot more peaceful than when he'd last seen it.

"Guess we didn't have a war then. Shame. I was looking forward to making some of those stuck-up pricks suffer."

"It's not as satisfying as you'd hope," Hastur said, hoarsely, "not as good as having you back."

Laughing, Ligur pressed a kiss to Hastur's temple.

"You've gone all soft," he said, surprised but not unhappy.

"S'that a problem?" Hastur growled, crowding Ligur against the alley wall. He pressed him hard against the brick and kissed him roughly, possessively, all teeth and too much saliva.

"Not at all. As long as you're still up for hurtin' other people."

"Obviously." Hastur grinned nastily. "Life's no fun otherwise, is it?"

Ligur smiled and shoved him away playfully. The chameleon nestled in his hair swiveled one eye and then another to Hastur's outfit.

"What're we doing here, anyway? 'N why are you dressed like a ponce?"

Hastur hissed a stream of foetid air through his teeth, letting the clothes Adam had manifested rot and moulder into rags. Clumps of straggly blonde hair drifted to the ground as his toad pushed itself up through his scalp.

"That's better," Ligur said, running a finger affectionately across the toad's slimy, warty back. It croaked happily. "Shall we get out of here?"

The door Hastur had come through was still there, white and shiny against the concrete. Crowley and the angel and Adam Young were still inside. He couldn't say who'd pop out of it next, but for some reason, he was suddenly feeling _lucky_.

He cracked his knuckles, popping the joints one by one. Crowley was in there, and there was a decent chance that he'd be out next, alone and undefended. The angel had to have his memories restored; who knew how long that would take. Crowley, on the other hand, was a fellow demon. Being in Her presence had been like sandpaper on the soul, and he couldn't imagine it would be any more pleasant for Crowley.

"Oh, we're gonna wait a bit. I have a feeling it's going to be worth our while sticking around here."

"Alright," Ligur said, leaning back against the wall, "not too long, though, yeah? I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. Pickin' all the buckles n' hooves out of your teeth afterwards is a real bugger, mind you."

***

God sat back in the chintzy armchair Adam had imagined when he thought of a "Grandmother's house." It was dusty pink and had little angels picked out in gold thread, darting in between the blossoms of the rose-patterned fabric. Adam had one too, big and comfy, although his wasn't quite as large. Between them, on a wobbly, folding card table, were laid a half-dozen cards with pictures that shifted under his gaze. They didn't have numbers. The only thing he could've said for certain was that there were at least two suits. It shouldn't have been enough for any kind of game, but Adam had the feeling that this was just one hand in a game that had been going on for a very long time. 

"Would you like any more tea, dear? Or sandwiches?" She said, gesturing to the tray balanced on the edge of the table. 

Adam shook his head. He'd had quite a few already, including several with fillings he'd never seen before. None of them were quite as good as his Mum's, but Adam took great care to be polite about it.

"No thanks. So I just..."

"Play whichever card you like, it's up to you. There are always consequences, of course, but nothing too serious in this case."

Adam examined the pair of cards in his hand. Side by side, they were as different as two cards could possibly be. At the same time, they were almost exactly the same. Carefully, he laid the one that looked like an imprisoned sunbeam, all flashing gold and soft, velvety dawn light, down on the table. 

"Wonderful choice," God said, and smiled.

***

When Aziraphale stepped out of Heaven for what he swore (if he had any say in the matter), would be the final time, Aziraphale did not expect to find himself in a dirty alleyway. He certainly didn't expect two equally filthy demons to be lying in wait. The demon he was expecting was fastidiously clean, and usually smelled rather pleasantly of soap and sandalwood. Hastur and Ligur, on the other hand, smelled like an open sewer full of burning tires. The only positive in the whole situation, as far as Aziraphale was concerned, was that they looked equally as horrified to see him as he was to see them.

The three of them stood, staring, for an awkward few seconds until Hastur spat wetly onto the concrete and shrugged his shoulders.

"Demon, angel, doesn't make any difference. Traitors, the both of you, and It's two against one. We aren't supposed to kill you, but nobody said anything about _hurting_."

"A lot," Ligur clarified, grinning as he slipped on a pair of brass knuckles, "you can hurt someone a lot without killing 'em."

"Er," Aziraphale said, backing away until his back hit the smooth wood of the door, "now, really, is that necessary? You got what you wanted," Aziraphale waved a hand at Ligur, "surely that's enough? No need to push our luck, after all."

"Luck?" Hastur laughed, "Who needs luck? Look at you, you big soft bastard! I killed you once without even trying."

Aziraphale shook his head a little sadly. This sort of thing happened regrettably often, and it was never as satisfying to teach people the error of their ways as one might hope. 

"You misunderstand me, gentlemen," Aziraphale wrinkled his nose in disgust, "and I use that word the loosest possible sense. I don't need to tell you what I am or where I've just come from. I'm not sure how you're feeling after meeting with your maker, but I, personally," he flexed his neck and felt a warm crackle of ethereal power shoot down his spine, "am feeling positively _spiffing_."

With a flourish, Aziraphale summoned the best weapon he could think of; not an umbrella but a snake-headed, silver-tipped cane that Crowley had abandoned in his umbrella stand in 1863, shortly before his long, long sleep. It was heavy enough to do some damage, but that wasn't why Aziraphale had whisked it across London. Crowley always had a weakness for flashy accessories, and this one was no exception. Aziraphale tugged on the head of the serpent and drew out a thin, wickedly sharp blade. 

"There we are. It's not technically legal to carry one of these anymore, but I think I'll wave my moral objections for once."

The sword felt good; the metal coils of the snake sat coolly in his palm as if it had been made for him, and the blade was as light as air. Where his old sword had burned with holy fire, this one gleamed dully, a marvel of human steel and ingenuity. Perfect for intimidating a pair of demons without a single brain cell between them, even if Aziraphale wasn't completely sure if he could stomach actually killing anyone with it.

Aziraphale brought the sword up, holding it at the ready, and raised an eyebrow expectantly. 

"There's still two of us. Want to bet you can't take both of us at once?" Ligur growled, taking a step forward. He stopped abruptly when Hastur stuck out his arm and pressed a warning hand to his chest.

"Not worth it. Let's just go. Would've been fun to kick him around but it's not worth either of us getting killed over."

"You sure?" Ligur asked, puzzled.

"Yeah. I just got you back, can't lose you again."

Hastur was looking at Ligur with a mixture of love, pride and lust, protective and possessive. The feeling appeared to be mutual, if the way that Ligur plucked Hastur's hand from his chest and kissed his filthy knuckles was anything to go by. If it hadn't been between the two worst people that Aziraphale had ever met, he would have almost called their relationship "sweet". 

"Alright, let's go. You bein' all protective is really doing something for me." 

"Is that right?" Hastur grinned, "I'll do something else for you if you like."

Aziraphale fought back the urge to vomit. 

"Honestly," he huffed, "do you have no sense of propriety? I do have a sword, you know. If I have to watch you two being..." he paused, choosing his words carefully. Anything too positive or complimentary might get him a demonic fist in the face before he could move his sword an inch. 

"... _disgusting_ together, I'll discorporate both of you and then myself. This body's eyes will be ruined forever."

"Prude," Hastur said, and snogged Ligur enthusiastically while prominently displaying his middle finger.

"Oh, good _lord_ ," Aziraphale muttered, and looked literally anywhere else. 

When he finally chanced a look in their direction, both demons were gone. They left behind a whiff of brimstone, two large smoking craters in the concrete, and one incredibly relieved angel.

"Thank Heaven for that," Aziraphale said, carefully sheathing the sword-stick. He'd seen Crowley accidentally stab himself in the hand with it before (which was probably a contributing factor in its abandonment), and despite his words to the contrary Aziraphale had no intention of being discorporated for a very, very long time. 

Sighing with relief, Aziraphale leaned back on the warm wood of the door. It had been a very long day and he was more tired than he could remember being in his entire existence. This was probably why he didn't realize that leaning on the door was a very stupid thing to do.

***

"Last card, Adam. This one should be a piece of cake."

Adam nodded. He laid a red, shimmering card down on top of the shining one. It had a strange aura, a kind of dark light that hurt his eyes a little, but Adam could tell it was a good card. It wasn't powerful, necessarily, but in whatever game he was playing this was the trump card, the coup de grace. It would tip the balance of any game, big or small. When he touched it to the sunlight card, both of them changed. Gold and black light mingled, mixing and combining into something completely new. 

They were a pair, that much was obvious. 

Adam smiled.

"Excellent game," God said, offering her hand for Adam to shake, "I couldn't have done it better myself." 

"What should I do with this one?" He said, holding out the final card in his hand. It was a bit dogeared, but it had potential. If he squinted at it, there was the image of something vast and terrible underneath its picture, which was of an apple tree drawn in wobbly biro on a white tippex background. It had been something else, once, but now? Adam wasn't sure. 

"You're not meant to be sure, not until you're older. Maybe not even then. Most people aren't." She smiled and took the card from him.

"That's for me to play, when you're ready to go. Which is whenever you like, of course." She put a hand on his shoulder; gently, carefully, as if She was afraid he would break. "I want to thank you, Adam, for everything you've done."

"Even the bits where I wasn't sure if I was doing the right thing?" Adam said, looking up into her unreadable eyes.

"Especially those bits."

***

The door had a bit more resistance than Crowley expected, but he managed to get it open with a good, hard shove. Something on the other side of it squawked and fell over, and suddenly the door was moving a lot more smoothly. He was dismayed to find that it was Aziraphale.

"Angel?" Crowley said, hoping against hope that he was a) still an angel, and b) _his_ angel.

"Ow," Aziraphale said, rolling onto his back.

"Oh shit, sorry!" 

Crowley hurried over and tried to help him up, but was almost knocked off his feet entirely when Aziraphale launched himself at his demon face first.

The kiss was hungry, deep, and deliciously familiar. It was a kiss that said a lot of things, _thank someone you're safe_ and _I missed you_ and _I love you_ and _don't you ever scare me like that again_. Crowley breathed Aziraphale in like oxygen and sighed him out again, breath catching in his throat. Aziraphale was warm and real and whole in his arms, and the love rolling off him in shining waves was almost too much to bear.

They broke apart eventually, breathless and tearful, and stood looking at one another in the fading sunlight.

Aziraphale was crying tears of joy and relief, sniffly and rumpled and red in the face. Crowley thought he was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

At least until Aziraphale hit him hard on the shoulder.

"You stupid idiot!" he snapped, smacking Crowley with the flat of his hand, "Going to _Heaven_ , trusting _Hastur_? Endangering Adam? What were you thinking!"

"Hey, ow--"

"You could've been _destroyed_! Then where would I be? Alone and heartbroken for the rest of eternity!"

"Azirapha--"

"You risked everything for me! To save me. Oh, you must have been terrified, my dear," Aziraphale said, running out of steam. He gripped Crowley's lapels and kissed him again. This time it was as soft and tender as the very first time, and it melted Crowley's heart just the same. 

"Whatever did I do to deserve you?" Aziraphale asked, cradling his face with one soft, gentle hand.

"Lots of stuff," Crowley said, dazedly, "S'kind of hard to think of specifics right now after _that_. Tons of things. Oodles." 

He grinned, drunk with joy at the sight of Aziraphale beaming at him. There weren't words to describe how it felt to have him back, really back again, so Crowley decided to skip words altogether and pulled Aziraphale into a hug so tight he could barely breathe. It was a good job, then, that the angel didn't need to.

"You didn't fall," Crowley said, breathing the words into the skin of Aziraphale's neck. 

"I did, I landed in a puddle," Aziraphale said indignantly, "I'll never get the stains out of these trousers."

"Capital F, angel." 

"Oh." Aziraphale squeezed him tightly and threaded a hand into Crowley's hair. "No, my dear. I... I'm not sure I understand what She said, but I got the distinct impression there was some sort of test going on. Apparently I passed."

"Load of bollocks, if you ask me," Crowley said, rubbing Aziraphale's back where his wings were tucked away, huge and white, on another plane of existence, "it's always tests with Her. The only way to pass is to not take the damned things."

"You would say that," Aziraphale laughed, "I don't think I've ever met anyone with less respect for authority than you, darling. I'm starting to think you might be onto something."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one got a bit long, so there's at least one more chapter :D
> 
> Thank you so much for all of your lovely comments, all of them have been read and appreciated and stored away in my heart <3


	19. Chapter 19

"How long has it been?" Aziraphale asked, pacing anxiously in front of Heaven's doorstep. 

"Too long. We were out within an hour of each other, and it's been two more."

Crowley put a hand on his shoulder, stilling the angel gently. 

"But She wouldn't hurt him, angel. He's just a kid."

Aziraphale looked at him despairingly. Both of them knew that wasn't how it worked. 

"He's the Antichrist, Crowley. He's powerful. What if she decides it's too dangerous to let him live here on Earth? Or that he's still got too much of Satan in him? We were supposed to be _godfathers_. What if we...what if…"

Crowley took a shaking Aziraphale in his arms again, squeezing just tightly enough to slow his rapid breathing. He rubbed the angel's back through his coat, feeling him unwind beneath his fingertips. Aziraphale had been through a lot. It was no wonder he was out of his mind with worry.

"He saved the world," Crowley said, smoothing the soft camel hair, "The kid stood up to Satan himself and told him to piss off. I highly doubt She'd be angry."

"I suppose not," Aziraphale murmured, his face buried in Crowley's jacket, "She didn't seem to be angry with _us_ , after all."

"No...weird, that." 

Crowley frowned, turning the puzzling conversation with the Almighty over in his head. "I expected....I dunno. Rage. Rejection. Wailing and gnashing of teeth. All that stuff from before, y'know? It wasn't good, the last time."

Crowley closed his eyes against the memory of blinding light; the righteous, holy fire that had burned the divinity out of him forever. She'd been angry _then_ , oh yes. Crowley hadn't known anger like that was possible.

"Can I ask what was it like, just now?" Aziraphale asked quietly, holding him even closer as if he thought Crowley might shatter to pieces, "I understand if you don't want to talk about it."

"No, no. It's okay. It was just odd. I yelled, She was frustratingly cryptic. Just your typical awkward family reunion, really."

"You _yelled_ at Her?" Aziraphale said, aghast. Crowley detected a shining note of pride in his voice as well, and it sent a thrill down his spine. Aziraphale was a very strange kind of angel. The best kind.

"Yeah, a bit. It was…" _terrifying_ , Crowley thought, _absolutely pants-shittingly horrifying_ , "...sssatifying."

It had been, he supposed. The horror and the shivering, shaking nausea aside, giving God a piece of his mind had felt _good_. Freeing. Crowley felt lighter than he had in thousands of years. Something he hadn't even realised was inside him had been clenched tightly ever since the Fall, and it had finally, finally begun to loosen.

"Oh, you brave, stupid creature," the angel sighed, holding on tightly as if he never wanted to let go, "I love you so much."

"Love you too, angel. Always have, always will."

"To the end of the world, my dear."

Crowley smiled, dipping a metaphorical toe into the roaring flow of Aziraphale's love and letting it pull him under, just for a second. It had always been there, he knew that now; a trickle, then a torrent, then a tsunami of emotion that the angel had tried to hold back behind a dam of denial. Always there, even when it was underground, and growing every day. When all of this was finally over he was looking forward to letting himself drown.

He couldn't yet, though. Crowley was tired, so tired, and all he wanted was to let Aziraphale lead him home to the bookshop, where there was wine and a big, soft bed surrounded by dusty teacups and piles of books. But Adam was the only reason he had Aziraphale at all. Adam, who was human and vulnerable and eleven years old. Crowley eyed the door suspiciously. The fact that it hadn't vanished into thin air was a good sign, maybe even a great one, but worry still gnawed hungrily in the pit of his stomach. Without trying, he knew that opening the door from this side was impossible. It would open when it was ready.

They just had to wait. 

He supposed he and Aziraphale should be good at waiting by now.

***

"So...there were never any dinosaurs? The bones were just buried in the ground from the start?" Adam said. He didn't sound convinced.

"That's right!" She said, grinning, "Hilarious, isn't it?"

"I don't really get it. Dinosaurs were so cool, why is that funny?"

God waved a hand dismissively, laughing to herself. 

"Nobody gets it, it's alright. I know it is, that's what counts."

Adam yawned, belatedly remembering to cover his mouth with his hand. It probably wasn't polite to treat the creator of the universe to a view of your tonsils, but it had been a long day, and he supposed it wasn't anything She hadn't seen before, if only at the research and development stage.

"You're tired, aren't you, dear?"

"A little bit, sorry," Adam said, stifling another yawn.

"Not to worry. It's been wonderful having you to visit, Adam." 

The armchair was soft and comfortable, a great big hug of a thing, and it was almost painful to leave it. He knew, if he went upstairs, that there would be a spare bedroom with a soft bed and wallpaper with a pattern of Martians and Tibetans and Atlantians. He could stay for as long as he liked. But his Mum and Dad would worry if he was away too long, not to mention Dog. And if he stayed, there'd be nobody to stop Pepper and Brian from arguing, or to help Wensleydale keep score of who was winning. Reluctantly, Adam forced himself to get up.

"Thanks for having me," he said, sleepily, wobbling slightly on tired legs, "but I think I'm going to go home now."

"The pleasure was all mine," She said, leading him to the door down a hallway filled to bursting with shelves of knick-knacks. Most of them were animals, porcelain and wood and glass creations of all shapes and sizes, but there were others, too; a few tiny angels and demons and even a pair of humans wearing figleaves. An overwhelming number of the statues were beetles.

"Would you like to take anything as a little souvenir?" She offered. Adam shook his head.

"I can't," he said, "they're too pretty. And you've got so many, it must've taken forever to collect them all."

"About seven days, actually," She said, smiling widely, "here, why don't you take this one. It used to be part of a pair, but I lost the other one years ago."

In her hand was a tiny unicorn made of pearlescent ceramic, with a horn carved from mother-of-pearl. It could've been something sold in a shop filled with too many crystals and dream-catchers, were it not for the gleam in the little creature's eye. 

"Are you sure?" Adam asked.

He wanted to reach out and just take it, this tiny thing that seemed to have been made for him. If asked, Adam wouldn't say why he felt that way. Perhaps, he would wonder later, it was because it was half real and half magical, dancing all alone on the knife-edge of reality. There may never have been dinosaurs (and Adam still wasn't sure what to believe, there), but he now knew for certain there had once been unicorns, and they had been absolutely _brilliant_.

"I insist. I'd be offended if you didn't," She said. 

Her eyes twinkled playfully. Adam took the unicorn and gingerly tucked it away in his pocket. He wasn't it would make it home in one piece, but something told him it was sturdier than it looked. 

"Thanks." Adam stifled another yawn. "Will I see you again?"

"Eventually. Not for a long time, I hope," She ruffled Adam's hair affectionately, "But I'll see you every day. Not literally, of course. That'd be creepy, can you imagine? I'll know how you're getting on."

"I hadn't really thought about that," Adam said, grinning, "do people really think you watch them on the toilet or in the bath?"

God laughed, shaking her head and sending up a halo of tiny sparks, an afterimage of a being that was anything but human. With his human eyes Adam saw a friendly, sprightly woman who looked like she enjoyed a bit of gardening on the weekends. At the same time, Adam could almost make out something vast and ancient; a being bigger than the Universe who had cradled it in her arms even as she painted the patterns onto all the flowers of the Garden. 

It hurt a bit. Adam rubbed his corporeal eyes and carefully closed his inner one.

"Goodbye, dear," She said, and gave him a very human hug, "don't be a stranger."

"I won't. I'll try and go to Church sometimes even though there's really good cartoons on Sunday mornings."

God nodded sagely. Children would be children, She supposed. She had billions of them, after all, and in her own way, she loved every last one of them.

Adam waved as he stepped through the door, leaving behind grubby footprints on the hallway carpet and a deity with a smile that could, if one chose to use the word, be described as ineffable.

She laid the apple tree playing card down where the unicorn had been, in the shadow of a crystal statue of an angel and a demon holding hands.

***

By the time that Adam emerged from Heaven, Crowley had worked himself into such a state of anxiety that he'd resorted to imidating the clump of weeds growing next to the bins. They were doing alright, to be sure, pushing their way up through the concrete with the inexorable, vegetable strength of all green things. It didn't do to get complacent, though. Crowley was about to launch into a lecture about the dangers of overconfidence and service workers armed with Roundup when the door he'd been keeping one reptilian eye on for the last three hours suddenly opened.

Aziraphale promptly dropped the newspaper he'd been fussing distractedly with into a puddle and made a beeline for the door. Crowley did likewise, extremely relieved weeds forgotten. They collided just before they reached Adam, welcoming him back to Earth with an awkward joint hug from both of them.

"Hello, you two," he said, sleepily, "Everything turn out alright?"

"Yeah," Crowley said, "absolutely tickety-boo."

"What's that mean?" Adam asked. Crowley snorted with amusement.

"It means everything's fantastic, kid. You did great."

Aziraphale was fidgeting, patting stiffly at Adam's back. That was his usual hint that he wanted out of a hug, so Crowley subtly shifted out of his way. Six thousand years of repression was difficult to shake, even for an angel. Ministering to the sick or comforting the bereaved was one thing, all part of the angelic job description, but actually holding the people he loved in his arms was still difficult for Aziraphale. Crowley understood. If he'd had anything to lose, anywhere further to fall, he'd have spent the last six thousand years keeping his distance too. 

"What happened, my dear?" Aziraphale said, watching the easy way Crowley slung an arm around Adam's shoulders with a pinched expression, "You were in there a lot longer than either of us."

"We just hung out, chatted about stuff. We played cards for a bit. It was fun, She seems nice."

" _Hung out_?" Crowley hissed, at the same time Aziraphale gasped " _Cards_?"

They exchanged a glance that promised words about that, later, when they'd both had enough wine. Crowley wasn't sure there was enough in the whole of London.

"I won, I think," Adam said, happily.

Crowley stifled a laugh at the look on Aziraphale's face as he processed the implications of winning at cards with the creator of the Universe. 

"Right, kid," He said, shaking Adam slightly to make sure he wasn't falling asleep on his feet, "Let's get you home. After the day you've had I think you've earned a rest. You can have a nap on the way home. Did you know I invented napping? Some of my best work."

"That would require you to actually use the brakes occasionally, dear boy," Aziraphale said. Crowley stuck his tongue out at him, grinning.

***

Adam was asleep the instant he curled up on the back seat of the Bentley, his head pillowed on Aziraphale's coat. For once, Crowley drove smoothly and serenely through London, mildly relieved that the Bentley's brakes did still work correctly. It had been a while since he'd checked, not that he'd let the angel know that. Aziraphale sat quietly beside him, watching the moonlit streets slip by. His hand rested lightly on Crowley's knee, but he wasn't in the Bentley anymore. He wasn't even in the same galaxy.

"Alright, angel?" Crowley asked, softly.

Aziraphale blinked, coming back to himself with a start. He squeezed Crowley's knee to let him know he'd heard.

"Sorry, darling. I was miles away."

"I could see that. Did you bring me back anything nice?"

Aziraphale huffed a silent little laugh, one of the begrudging ones that were always just for Crowley. Those were the best ones.

"It's so strange," he said, fiddling with the worn edges of his waistcoat, "I can still remember what it was like not to know you. To have lived my whole life without you." He squeezed Crowley's knee again, and Crowley took one hand off the wheel so he could lace his fingers with Aziraphale's. "He was so very, very sad, and he didn't even know why."

Crowley hissed under his breath and gripped the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white. One day, whatever it took, Gabriel was going to get what was coming to him. If Crowley had any say in the matter, what was coming to him would be a short, sharp blast of hellfire with no warning whatsoever.

"I'm so incredibly lucky," Aziraphale said, smiling fondly at the demon who had been by his side for six thousand years.

"We both are," Crowley replied. He held his breath for a beat, and then asked the question he knew he'd have to get out before it ate him alive.

"You weren't, uh, tempted at all?" Crowley looked out at the darkened streets and pictured Aziraphale's life without all of the stress and pain of hiding his love for a demon. All the fights and denial, all the crushing, bruising heartache. A life of certainty and warm, Heavenly light. Aziraphale ran a thumb across Crowley's knuckles and made a soft, pained little sound in the back of his throat.

"Oh, my darling. Not even for a second."

There was more they could have said; they had loved one another for a hundred lifetimes, through fires and floods and the end of the world. It would have taken a long, long time to trace the shape of a love that deep, that wide. 

And besides, there wasn't any need right now. It was all unsaid, hanging whole and perfect between them.

So, instead of talking, Aziraphale leaned his head against Crowley's shoulder, closed his eyes, and let his love carry him through the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be an Epilogue, but I'm calling this the end of the main story :D 
> 
> Huge thanks to everyone who has read, commented and left kudos. I hope you've had fun reading!


	20. Epilogue

The Universe tilts a little, afterwards.

The shift is subtle; a brush of a cosmic fingertip across the milky way that makes it sing like a plucked harp. After the note fades, things are different.

In the grimy boardrooms of Hell, rumours begin to fly that a certain Duke has returned, and that anyone who tries to ascertain the truth of them had better knock first if they value their sanity. Dagon avoids the files for weeks, trying to purge the image of maggots and scabrous skin from her brain. Beelzebub has more posters printed instructing demons not to lick other all the other surfaces for their own safety. 

Hastur and Ligur are disgustingly, virulently happy, and everyone else is  _ miserable _ . 

In Heaven, Gabriel receives a sternly worded note and a special assignment that makes him tear out some of his perfectly coiffed hair. Jophiel is patient with him, agonisingly so, to the point that he feels himself actually questioning the Almighty.

"Oh Lord," he prays, eyes raised skyward dramatically, "Why do you test me this way?"

<Because you've been sorely testing my patience>

Gabriel almost falls out of his chair, swearing most un-angelically as his head swims. It's the vertigo of looking over the edge, and he is suddenly very afraid of heights. 

After that, he reads his books without complaint. 

The will of the almighty is famously ineffable, but it's not too hard to see that introducing Gabriel to the breadth of human literature can only do him good. It's too much to hope that he might develop some affection for the curious little creatures who made it, striving and toiling to build something greater than themselves, but at least he'll understand some of why an angel and a demon risked everything to save them.

It's far more likely that he'll get horribly addicted to Dan Brown novels, but a deity can hope.

Elsewhere in Heaven, a small, underappreciated angel is surprised when his request for a body (for research purposes, of course) is miraculously granted. He is almost sick with excitement as he rides the elevator to ground level, and then is actually sick when the thoughts and emotions of the humans around him hit him right between the eyes. 

Nonetheless, Pravuil is  nothing if not determined, and he finds that the experience of real food, real drink and a sneaky trip to the theatre make up for it and then some. Watching the humans on stage is comfortingly familiar, after all. He manages a week, losing himself in the pleasures of Earth (the ones approved of by Heaven, or at least not explicitly  _ disapproved _ of), before he forgets to look both ways at a crossing on his way to a certain Soho bookshop, and is promptly and painlessly discorporated by a speeding taxi. 

In spite of its unfortunate end, he declares it to be an excellent holiday and immediately applies for another. 

After a few dozen years (and a succession of unfortunate discorporations), he will manage to make it to cocoa with Aziraphale, who will find the whole thing horrifyingly funny. He will cover his laughter with a sip of his drink, and Pravuil will be none the wiser. 

Right now, though, an angel and a demon are far too wrapped up in each other to notice the faint stain of angelic blood on the tarmac. 

They have a lot of time to make up for, after all, and all of eternity to do it in.

The sun shines just for them on the day that they pack their stuff into Crowley's Bentley and head out of London, free at last to go and find themselves.

And in a cottage in Tadfield, Adam Young dreamed of unicorns.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very short Epilogue, just to put a bow on the whole thing :D
> 
> Crowley and Aziraphale's story continues in Wash The Ledgers Clean, the next fic in this series. 
> 
> I traumatised them a fair bit so they deserve some softness, and Crowley's still got that little velvet box under his sofa ;)


End file.
